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      No easy ride for Biden as Kimmel tells him to ‘start yelling at people’

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      No easy ride for Biden as Kimmel tells him to ‘start yelling at people’Serious questions on gun violence mean there are few laughs as US president meets late-night TV host “Our very special guest tonight is to aviator sunglasses what Tom Cruise is to aviator sunglasses,” quipped the late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel. “I’m proud to say I voted for him dozens of times. He is the reason we all got a cavity search tonight.”This was how Kimmel introduced Joe Biden for his first in-person interview with a late-night host since taking office as US president.But any hopes that Biden, whose poll ratings are plunging, might have had that the comedian would invite him to show a lighter side to his personality were soon dashed. It was a night when there were not many laughs.Once the president had sat down, Kimmel asked: “Do you mind if I ask you some serious questions?” He then dived straight in to demand why, after a flurry of mass shootings across America, nothing had been done since Biden entered the White House.“Well, I think a lot of it’s intimidation by the NRA [National Rifle Association],” the president replied. “Look, this is not your father’s Republican party. This is a Maga party,” – a reference to the former president Donald Trump’s “Make America great again” slogan, which Biden is increasingly using an insult.“It’s a very different Republican party and so you find people who are worried, I believe, that if they vote for a rational gun policy they’re going to be primaried and they’re going to lose in a hard-right Republican primary.”Biden said he had always had a “straight relationship” with Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate. “You know, he’s a guy that when he says something, he means it. I disagree with a lot of what he says, but he means it.”But Kimmel, seemingly determined to blunt rightwing criticism that he would give the president an easy ride, showed greater willingness to interrupt Biden than many political interviewers. He objected that McConnell had contradicted himself on confirming supreme court justices in a president’s final year.Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BSTBiden added: “Look, he’s the leader of a party that’s moved very hard right and so, in order to get anything done, he has a different problem than he did early on before Trump became president.”Kimmel observed that although the Republican party had moved to the hard right, the American people had not because an overwhelming majority supported expanded background checks on gun buyers. His voice quivering with emotion, the host suggested that every senator should sit with the grieving families of 19 schoolchildren killed last month in Uvalde, Texas.He interrupted Biden again to ask impatiently: “Can’t you issue an executive order? Trump passed those out like Halloween candy.”The president noted he had issued some executive orders but said to applause: “I don’t want to emulate Trump’s abuse of the constitution and constitutional authority.”He said he knew some people felt like “Republicans don’t play it square, why do you play it square? Well, guess what? If we do the same thing they do, our democracy will literally be in jeopardy. Not a joke.”Kimmel replied: “It’s like you’re playing Monopoly with somebody who won’t pass go or won’t follow any of the rules, and how do you ever make any progress if they’re not following the rules?”Biden smiled and joked, “You’ve got to send them to jail”, a reference to a punishment in the board game.Biden is facing concerns about high fuel prices, baby formula shortages, and a lack of progress on several legislative fronts such as gun safety and voting rights. A Morning Consult poll published on Wednesday found that 58% of those surveyed disapproved of Biden’s performance as president, while 39% of respondents approved.Biden has also been criticised for giving fewer media interviews than his predecessors: Wednesday’s was his first since 10 February. While Trump gave late-night TV a wide berth as president, Barack Obama was a regular presence on the shows during his time in office. Biden did a virtual interview with Jimmy Fallon last December.Kimmel’s show on the ABC network was recorded in Los Angeles, where Biden is visiting for this week’s Summit of the Americas, bringing together countries from across the hemisphere. The first lady, Jill Biden, was in the audience along with Biden’s granddaughter Naomi and her fiance.At one point Kimmel, who in past years has spoken out passionately about healthcare and gun violence, pondered political gridlock and the spread of false information and advised: “I think you need to start yelling at people.”Biden demurred, saying the US was still suffering from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, but insisted he had “never been more optimistic in my life”.Kimmel again cut in: “Why are you so optimistic? It makes no sense.”Biden said he was pinning his hopes on young people, the “best educated, least prejudiced, most giving generation in American history. This generation is going to change everything. We just have to make sure we don’t give up.”Later Kimmel sympathised with Biden’s endlessly multiplying crises, including an imminent supreme court decision on abortion rights. “What a terrible job you have,” he said. “I’m glad you’re doing it. But, boy oh boy, does this seem like a bad gig.”TopicsJoe BidenThe US politics sketchBiden administrationUS gun controlJimmy KimmelUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      ‘I keep hope alive’: Tamara Tunie on playing Kamala Harris in political dystopia The 47th

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      Interview‘I keep hope alive’: Tamara Tunie on playing Kamala Harris in political dystopia The 47thArifa Akbar The Law & Order: SVU star is returning to the stage in a White House satire set in 2024. She talks about the ‘black-lash’ after Obama’s election, brokering a new deal for Broadway diversity – and her role as Whitney Houston’s mumTamara Tunie is limbering up to play the vice-president of America in Mike Bartlett’s new political satire, The 47th. “I have great admiration for what she’s achieved,” says Tunie, in a back office at the Old Vic in London, emanating a big, easygoing exuberance that seems Californian in spirit, although she is a New Yorker. So how is she preparing for the role of Kamala Harris: observing her public persona to mimic her convincingly?“No, I don’t try to impersonate – I find that could get in the way,” says Tunie, who appears utterly at ease with the part. Perhaps that’s because she is no stranger to playing true-life characters – including Whitney Houston’s mother, Cissy, in the upcoming biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody. “I go to good old YouTube to see what interviews I can find,” she says of her research. “But what I look for more is the essence of the person: there might be one or two things that are significantly them – a quirk, something that they do. What I try to do is land on that but then allow myself the freedom to go: ‘What if they were in this situation?’”Bartlett’s drama finds Harris in 2024 in a world still dominated by the Trump family. It is a funny, horrifying political dystopia, much of it written in iambic pentameter with sly Shakespearean references tucked in. The reality of living through the Trump administration was sobering for Tunie. “This undercurrent of racism and misogyny was always there. What Trump allowed was the Pandora’s Box to be flung open … We must remain vigilant, and we must constantly fight, and we can never just relax and think ‘OK, everything is taken care of.’”Does she think America began relaxing during the Obama years? “Absolutely. The point when President Obama was elected was when the term ‘post-racial’ was coined. That was, unfortunately, a fantasy that everything was all fixed, because now we had a black president. What we are seeing – and one of the reasons I believe that Trump was elected – was that there was a backlash. In my circle we called it ‘black-lash’.”Tunie was born and raised in Pittsburgh, one of six siblings whose parents ran a funeral home. Her mother was also the first black female security guard at United States Steel and had a strong activist streak: “She believed that if there was something that needs to be addressed, you don’t wait for somebody else to do it.” Her father had a second job as an airport porter. Tunie was an all-rounder at school who loved singing and dancing but was fiercely academic, with ambitions to become a medic (she has played a medical examiner for more than 20 years in the TV drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit).What made her swerve into the performing arts was a single, thrilling moment, in the choir of a spring concert at high school. “I had a solo number and I got a standing ovation. It occurred to me that ‘This makes people really happy, it is something I love to do, and I can touch people with it.’”She won admission to the prestigious drama school at Carnegie Mellon University and made her Broadway debut in 1981. Feeling potentially pigeonholed as a musical performer, she stopped singing and dancing for a while. “I was classically trained. I wanted to do Shakespeare, I wanted to do straight plays, film and television. So for a good eight years or so I didn’t sing at all.”What was it like to return to singing for her part as Cissy Houston, one among a family of women with phenomenal voices, filmed last year? “Utterly intimidating. A lot of people don’t know that I sing, but the music that inspires me is in the jazz vein. Cissy Houston is more an amazing singer of gospel and R&B.” Tunie re-trained her vocals to “find” the character with the help of a musical team which included Rickey Minor, Whitney’s musical director.The 47th is the first live show Tunie has done since the beginning of the pandemic but she used the shutdown to build a campaign for better inclusivity within the theatre community. As part of Black Theatre United, the organisation which Tunie co-founded with fellow black professionals, a “New Deal for Broadway” was secured last year, which established industry-wide standards for equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility. “This was a product of six months of meetings with the leaders in the industry: theatre owners, producers, creatives, casting directors. It is not a legal document but an agreement that is saying we as a community are going to address the exclusions of black people and make the industry much more inclusive.”Has she seen change more generally across screen and stage in recent years? Yes, but it has come very slowly and with a lot of pain. And even then it could flip back, she says, returning to her point about remaining vigilant. “But what I see in Hollywood are black individuals who have their own production companies, and black people making their own content, with Hollywood calling on them. There is Shonda Rhimes and the incredible dynasty she has built … I see that here, too [in the UK] – I worked with Michaela Coel in Black Earth Rising and she is very much the example of what I’m talking about.”On the subject of trailblazing women, has she ever met Harris? “I was on a Zoom with some other black women [during the presidential campaign] and she chatted with us, sharing some of her thoughts and policies for the future of the country. I found her utterly engaging.” So Harris for president? “As Jesse Jackson would say, ‘I keep hope alive.’ [To be vice-president] is a monumental accomplishment and I feel like it’s another rung in the ladder towards equality and space for not just a woman but a woman of colour to be the president of the United States. That would be the best thing for the country.”
      The 47th is at the Old Vic, London, from 29 March to 28 May.
      TopicsTheatreMike BartlettOld Vic TheatreKamala HarrisUS politicsTelevisionWhitney HoustoninterviewsReuse this content More

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      Star Trek makes Stacey Abrams president of United Earth – and stokes conservative anger

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      Star Trek makes Stacey Abrams president of United Earth – and stokes conservative angerNational Review says candidate for governor in Georgia and self-confessed superfan does not deserve fictional title The Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights campaigner Stacey Abrams has been made president – of United Earth.‘Champion for Alaska’: Don Young, longest-serving House Republican, dies at 88 Read moreThe honour, which a leading conservative website said Abrams did not deserve, was bestowed by the Paramount+ TV series Star Trek: Discovery, in its season four finale.Abrams is a self-confessed Star Trek superfan. In 2019, she told the New York Times she binged on episodes during her last run for governor.“I love Voyager and I love Discovery and of course I respect the original,” she said, “but I revere The Next Generation.”Michelle Paradise, executive producer of Star Trek: Discovery, told Variety the show decided it needed a figure of suitable gravitas.“When the time came to start talking about the president of Earth,” she said, “it seemed like, ‘Well, who better to represent that than her?”Abrams is a former Democratic member of the Georgia state house as well as a prolific romance novelist. She has said she will be US president by 2040.In 2018, she ran the Republican Brian Kemp close for governor of Georgia. She is seeking a rematch this year and in part thanks to her work on voting rights has risen to prominence in the national party, having been considered for vice-president to Joe Biden.Abrams’s work helped secure both Biden’s win in Georgia in 2020 and Democratic control of the US Senate, via two Georgia run-offs.Such work has made her a target of the right. On Friday, the National Review, a conservative site, published a column about her Star Trek cameo: Stacey Abrams Does Not Deserve to Be President of Earth.Abrams, the Review said, “is, at this time, most famous for losing the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election and then proceeding to deny she had lost it”.Abrams refused to concede to Kemp, who as Georgia secretary of state oversaw the purging of voter rolls before the election he contested.Brad Raffensperger, the current Georgia secretary of state, has argued that Abrams’ refusal to concede was “morally indistinguishable from – and helped set the stage for – former president Donald Trump’s behavior after the 2020 presidential election”.Raffensperger famously stood up to Trump, whose request that Raffensperger “find” sufficient votes to flip the state is at the heart of a grand jury investigation.In 2019, Abrams told the New York Times that while she “legally acknowledge[d] that Brian Kemp secured a sufficient number of votes under our existing system to become the governor of Georgia. I do not concede that the process was proper, nor do I condone that process.”She also said: “I have no empirical evidence that I would have achieved a higher number of votes. However, I have sufficient and I think legally sufficient doubt about the process to say that it was not a fair election.”The Review complained that Star Trek would never make Trump president of Earth, not even “in the way that the evil genetic superman Khan Noonien Singh once despotically ruled one-quarter of earth’s population”.It added: “In classic Trek fashion, Abrams [was] shown as the logical and inevitable result of the kind of technocratic progressivism that the show has long advanced, a fruition of our highest ideals. Her behavior in the political sphere does not seem to bear this out.”Elie Mystal, a writer for the Nation, responded: “Look at how conservative white people react to a FICTIONAL black woman president.”Mystal also tied the Review’s criticism to events in Washington, where Ketanji Brown Jackson will next week begin confirmation hearings to be the first Black woman on the supreme court.“Next week,” Mystal wrote, “this same publication that can’t handle a black women president ON A TELEVISION SHOW is going to claim to have reasonable and *totally not racist* thoughts about a real life black woman on the supreme court.” The makers of Star Trek: Discovery seemed happy just to have had Abrams on set. They also explained how they fulfilled her request not to be told of the plot of her episode, so she could enjoy it later.As the Washington Post reported, the episode, which was filmed in Toronto last August, ended with Abrams “telling the show’s protagonist … ‘There’s a lot of work to do. Are you ready for that?’“‘I am,’ [Captain Michael Burnham] responds. ‘Let’s get to it.’”Sonequa Martin-Green, who plays Burnham, told Variety she was “taken aback … and really moved” by Abrams’ performance.“It really signaled the culmination of the season having her there,” she said, “because she’s such this symbol of hope and strength and connection and sacrifice and building something bigger than yourself that will last generations, and that’s exactly what we’re talking about doing in the story.”In a “cherished moment”, Martin-Green said, Abrams was presented with a trophy, a captain’s badge and a poem.TopicsStacey AbramsStar TrekUS politicsDemocratsUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaUS televisionnewsReuse this content More

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      Rudy Giuliani doesn’t need a monster costume to scare children | Sam Wolfson

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      Rudy Giuliani doesn’t need a monster costume to scare childrenSam WolfsonTrump’s lawyer was revealed to be a contestant on The Masked Singer – and when Robin Thicke storms off in protest, you know you’ve got problems It’s like something from a Guillermo del Toro film: a grotesque fantasy creature disrobes, only to reveal an even more horrifying monster underneath. But that’s what viewers will see when the US version of The Masked Singer, Fox’s incognito singing competition, returns at the end of this month.Rudy Giuliani’s surprise reveal on Masked Singer led to judges walking offRead moreThe show, in which a panel of judges and the audience try to guess the identity of celebrity vocalists dressed in furry theme-park costumes, is taped in advance of airing. But Deadline reports that at the first episode’s climax, when the eliminated singer reveals their true identity, it was Rudy Giuliani whose head popped out of the costume. Judges Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke walked off the set in protest. Quite a good reflection of how bad a guy you have to be when rape-culture chanteur Thicke, the singer of Blurred Lines, decides you’re beyond the pale.The disbarred attorney and former mayor of New York, who played one of the largest roles in trying to end 250 years of American democracy, is now under investigation for bribing foreign powers to investigate his political opponent, lying about election fraud, and trying to actively overturn votes, in some cases by seizing voting machines or ignoring electoral counts. It would be fair to say that the only reason the results of a democratic presidential election were not overturned is because Giuliani’s attempts were thwarted.So what better place for this cuddly henchman to hide from law enforcement than on a cosplay singing show. No footage has yet been released of what outfit Giuliani was wearing, although he doesn’t need a monster costume to scare children. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine how the producers came up with something more grotesque than his own smirking face, seen recently on the Borat sequel making creepy sex eyes at an actor he believed was a young journalist as he thrust his hand down his trousers.The Masked Singer began in Korea, but has been exported round the world and become one of the most successful non-scripted series in the US of the last decade. Stars from every era, including Gladys Knight, T-Pain, Jojo and Jewel, have found career rejuvenation after appearing on the show as furrier versions of themselves.But the masks have also been a way on sneaking controversial figures who may not normally be accepted on primetime TV. Logan Paul, who uploaded footage of a suicide victim to his YouTube channel, was eliminated in season five, and in season three a cuddly pink bear that rapped Sir Mix-a-Lot’s Baby Got Back was revealed to be former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Palin later commented that her appearance was “a walking middle finger to the haters out there”.Reality TV provides a fantastic and powerful form of reputation-washing, in which all participants are celebrated “for being able to laugh at themselves”, as if that was a greater attribute than not being a fascist.There is a reason Giuliani, Palin, Sean Spicer (Dancing with the Stars), Anthony Scaramucci and Omarosa Manigault Newman (Celebrity Big Brother) have attempted to use entertainment, rather than politics, to revive their reputations, and it’s not just because they enjoying turning network television into a moral-less Hunger Games universe where propagandists with blood on their hands shimmy in sparkles in between adverts for pharmaceuticals and Tostitos. Shows like The Masked Singer encourage viewers to think of politicians’ personalities as somehow separate from their political positions.We’ll have to wait until next month to find out what Giuliani wore. Until then, we’re left to imagine what stench uncontrolled flatulence might create in a costume that producers have previously warmed can get dangerously hot.TopicsRudy GiulianiTelevisionUS politicsTrump administrationUS televisioncommentReuse this content More

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      The secret history of Sesame Street: ‘It was utopian – it’s part of who we all are’

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      In 1970, David Attie was sent to photograph the birth of the kids’ landmark TV show as part of a cold war propaganda drive by the US government. But these newly found images are just one part of the programme’s radical historyby Steve Rose“I’m still pinching myself that my dad, my own flesh and blood, had Ernie on one hand and Bert on the other,” Eli Attie says. “It is like he got to sit at Abbey Road studios and watch the Beatles record I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Attie’s father was the photographer David Attie who, in 1970, visited the set of Sesame Street in New York City during its first season. His images lay forgotten in a wardrobe for the next 50 years, until Eli recently discovered them. They are a glimpse behind the curtain of a cultural phenomenon waiting to happen. Here are not only Bert and Ernie but Kermit, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch with his original orange fur (he was green by season two). And here are the people who brought these characters to life, chiefly Jim Henson and Frank Oz, the Lennon and McCartney of Muppetdom. What also stands out in Attie’s images are the children visiting the set. As in the show itself, they are clearly so beguiled by the puppets, they completely ignore the humans controlling them.Eli himself was one of those visitors, although he has no memory of it. “I was in diapers, and as the story goes, I was loud and not to be quieted down, and was yanked off the set,” he says. His parents and older brother Oliver at least made it into the photos. Oliver was even in an episode of the show, in the background in Hooper’s Store, Eli explains, with just a hint of jealousy.Fifty-two years and more than 4,500 episodes later, Sesame Street remains the premier address in children’s entertainment. It is still watched by hundreds of millions around the world, and broadcast in more than 140 countries. One attempt to statistically measure the show’s impact on American society failed because nobody could find a large enough sample group who hadn’t watched it. Sesame Street’s place in US culture was bizarrely underlined last month when Big Bird announced on Twitter: “I got the Covid-19 vaccine today! My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy.” He was promoting the rollout of vaccinations to five- to 11-year-olds, but Big Bird’s tweet, combined with Sesame Street’s recent introduction of a new Korean American muppet, has prompted a conservative backlash. Texas senator Ted Cruz responded: “Government propaganda … for your 5 year old!” Cruz later doubled down, tweeting a cartoon of the Sesame Street characters sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner table, with a dead, cooked Big Bird in place of a turkey.Others piled in. The influential Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) expressly banned Big Bird and other Sesame Street characters from its next conference, and CPAC organiser Matt Schlapp called for PBS, which broadcasts the show (although new episodes now air on HBO Max), to be defunded. “They just won’t stop in their push for woke politics,” he complained. Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers went even further, declaring: “Big Bird is a communist.”Beyond the optics of beating up on universally beloved children’s characters, in the context of David Attie’s images, these takes could hardly be more wrong. Attie had been commissioned to photograph Sesame Street by Amerika, a Russian-language magazine funded by the US state department and distributed in the Soviet Union. Essentially, it was a cold war propaganda project. Soviet officials would regularly return copies of Amerika to the US embassy unsold, saying their citizens were not interested. In truth, the magazine was so sought after, it became a black-market commodity, explains Eli Attie. “One embassy official said to me they had traded two copies of Amerika for these impossible-to-find ballet tickets in Moscow at the time,” he says. So Sesame Street was used as government propaganda, just not in the way Cruz and Rogers might imagine.You could say that Sesame Street had a political mission from the outset, as the new documentary, Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street (to which Attie’s book is a companion piece), lays out. One of the show’s co-founders, the broadcaster Joan Ganz Cooney, was involved “intellectually and spiritually” with the civil rights movement. The other, psychologist Lloyd Morrisett, was concerned about a widening education gap in the 1960s US, which was leaving behind socioeconomically deprived children, particularly African Americans. These children were often spending long hours at home watching television while their parents were busy working. Instead of jingles for beer commercials, Cooney and Morrisett reasoned, why not use television to teach them literacy and numeracy?With an $8m federal grant, the newly formed Children’s Television Workshop spent two years researching how to make content that would not only be educational but entertaining. That’s where The Muppet Workshop came in (even if the hippy-ish Henson was initially distrusted by his more academic colleagues). Not to mention the songs, the anarchic comedy sketches, the surreal animations, and the improvised child-with-muppet segments. The whole thing was an experiment. Nothing like it had been done before and there was no guarantee it would be a success, but everyone seemed to be on the same page.As Cooney puts it in the documentary: “We weren’t so worried about reaching middle-class children but we really, really wanted to reach inner-city kids badly. It was hardly worth doing if it didn’t reach them.” This explains why the show was set on an ordinary New York street – a radical move for children’s TV, a familiar place for the target audience. Equally radically, the show was multicultural and inclusive from the start, with white, Black and Latino actors alongside non-human characters of all colours. Even the title sequence and the guests reflected the US’s diversity (the first season featured James Earl Jones, BB King, Mahalia Jackson and Jackie Robinson). As the long-running writer and director Jon Stone said of the show’s inclusive approach: “We’ve never beaten that horse to death by talking about it; we simply show it.”Sesame Street has taught kids about all manner of life topics. Not only racism (most recently with the introduction of two new African American characters, post-Black Lives Matter) but also poverty, addiction, autism, HIV and Aids, public health (Covid was not Big Bird’s first jab, he also got a measles vaccination in 1972), and gentrification (in 1994, the street was under threat of demolition from a loud-mouthed property tycoon named “Ronald Grump”, played by Joe Pesci). Sesame Street has even tackled the concept of death: when Will Lee, who played storekeeper Mr Hooper, died in 1982, the show featured a wrenching segment in which neighbours, clearly tearfully, explain to Big Bird that Mr Hooper is dead and is never coming back.It wasn’t just “inner-city kids” Sesame Street was popular with. While his father was working, Eli Attie’s artist mother would also put him and his brother in front of the TV to watch it so she could paint. “There was a block of hours that it was on public broadcasting stations in the New York region. So she just thought: ‘Hallelujah. I can place them here, they’re entertained,’” he says. “We were learning to count, we were learning to spell and we were learning a kind of comedy: we both became fans of Monty Python and standup comedy and I’m sure this was the gateway.” Attie went on to become a TV writer and producer, working on shows such as The West Wing, House and Billions.Sesame Street’s inclusive, humane, progressive agenda has always had its enemies. Mississippi broadcasters refused to air the first season back in 1969 on account of the show’s desegregated setting (they backed down after a few weeks). In the past decade, the conservative chorus of disapproval has been getting louder. Before Cruz and co, the show and PBS have been targeted by the likes of Mitt Romney, Fox News, and, inevitably, Donald Trump.“Sesame has never been a political show; it has been a very socially relevant show,” says Trevor Crafts, producer of the Street Gang documentary. Although the political climate today has echoes of the 1960s, when Sesame Street was created, he feels. “It was a very similar time. There was a lot of social unrest, and here we are again. It just shows that you need something like Sesame Street to sort of increase the volume of good in the world. And also to know that through creativity, you can make change. Positive change can occur if you’re willing to see a problem and try to fix it and do it creatively.”Where some might see a political agenda, many more would simply see a model for the kind of society the US would like to be. “I think it showed everybody: ‘This is who we should be in our hearts,’” Eli Attie says. “It was utopian. It was optimistic, it was challenging and smart. And it didn’t talk down to children.” As well as a family album, his father’s photos capture that spirit of playful idealism. “I see now that’s part of who I am,” he says. “And it’s part of who we all are.” TopicsChildren’s TVUS televisionTelevisionPhotographyThe MuppetsArt and design booksfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Meghan uses Ellen DeGeneres interview to call for paid family leave in US

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      Meghan uses Ellen DeGeneres interview to call for paid family leave in USDuchess of Sussex renews call to ‘put families above politics’ as Congress considers Biden bill The Duchess of Sussex has renewed her call for the US to implement paid family leave, in an interview with the chatshow host Ellen DeGeneres.Appearing on NBC’s The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday afternoon, Meghan stressed the importance of paid leave, which is included in Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill but is opposed by Republicans and at least one key Democratic senator.“I think that people truly forget, or don’t even know, that in this country, it’s one of the only six countries in the entire world and the only wealthy nation in the entire world that does not mandate and have a federal paid leave programme,” Meghan said.“Everybody knows, especially if you have had a child and even if you haven’t, you know how hard it is and how critical it is in those first few weeks, if not months, to be together as a family.“And the fact that we don’t offer that here is something that now, as a mom of two, I will do everything that I can to make sure that we can implement that for people.”Meghan wrote an open letter to the top congressional Democrats Chuck Schumer, the majority leader of the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, in October, advocating for legislation mandating paid leave.“This isn’t about right or left, it’s about right or wrong. This is about putting families above politics,” Meghan wrote of her new cause.Can Harry and Meghan succeed in reintroducing royalty into US politics?Read moreMeghan’s appearance on the TV show had been kept secret until Wednesday, when DeGeneres posted a trailer for the interview on Twitter.The pair also discussed how Meghan and her husband, Britain’s Prince Harry, had secretly visited a Halloween party in 2016, just before their relationship was made public.And Meghan revealed that Harry, whom she sometimes refers to as “H”, is enjoying California.“The lifestyle, the weather’s pretty great. We’re just happy,” Meghan, who was born in Los Angeles, said.Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey earlier this year created headlines around the world.In that interview, Meghan said she had experienced racism from a member of the royal family, and said she had experienced suicidal thoughts as a result of the environment created by the British tabloid media, and the institution of the monarchy.The conversation with DeGeneres on Thursday stayed mostly light, however, with the Duchess and the chatshow host discussing their plans for the Thanksgiving celebration next week. Meghan planned to cook for the event, she said.This is the final season of DeGeneres’s long-running show, which was plunged into crisis last year, after allegations of behind-the-scenes sexual harassment and racist behavior on the show.BuzzFeed News reported that it had spoken with 36 former employees, many of whom corroborated incidents of sexual misconduct, harassment and assault. The outlet reported that allegations included sexual misconduct between executives and lower-level employees, including requests for sex.DeGeneres apologised and said she had “not been able to stay on top of everything and relied on others to do their jobs as they knew I’d want them done”.The show may have appeared an odd platform for the Duchess to choose, but she, Harry and DeGeneres have been friends for some years and DeGeneres has previously defended the couple against unforgiving media scrutiny.Meghan and Harry broke away from the British royal family early last year and later moved to LA.DeGeneres has previously described them as “the cutest couple, so down to earth” and said: “I see them get attacked and it’s not fair.”
      In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org
      TopicsMeghan, the Duchess of SussexUS politicsEllen DeGeneresUS televisionnewsReuse this content More

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      Jon Ronson and Adam Curtis on the culture wars: ‘How has this happened? Where is the escape hatch?’

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      As Ronson’s BBC podcast Things Fell Apart begins, the documentary-makers and old friends discuss conspiracy theories, the problem of ‘activist journalists’ and what happened to Ceaușescu’s socksby Fiona SturgesJon Ronson and Adam Curtis became friends in the late 1990s, having bonded over their shared interests in power, society and the stories we tell about ourselves. Curtis, 66, is a Bafta-winning documentary film-maker whose credits include The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear and HyperNormalisation. His most recent six-part series, Can’t Get You Out of My Head, draws on the history of psychology and politics to show how we got to where we are today. Ronson, 54, is a US-based Welsh writer and journalist whose books include 2015’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, about social media brutality and the history of public shaming. In recent years, Ronson has turned to podcasting, investigating the porn industry in The Butterfly Effect and its follow-up The Last Days of August.Sign up to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the magazine’s biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights.His forthcoming BBC podcast, Things Fell Apart, is about the roots of the culture wars and the ways the present is echoed in the past. Over eight episodes, he talks to individuals caught up in ideological conflicts, conspiracy theories and moral panics. These include Alice Moore, the wife of a fundamentalist minister and unexpected culture war instigator who campaigned to remove textbooks containing liberal material from schools, and Kelly Michaels, a daycare worker and victim of the “satanic panic” who was wrongfully imprisoned in 1988 by a New Jersey court for child abuse (the verdict was overturned in 1993).We are on: Curtis is talking from his office in London while Ronson is at home in New York. By way of preparation before their chat, Curtis has binged on Ronson’s new series. No sooner are cameras switched on than the reminiscences begin.Jon Ronson Do you remember that time we went to an auction of [the late Romanian dictator Nicolae] Ceaușescu’s belongings?Adam Curtis Yes, now that was exciting.JR It was. We went on a minibreak to Romania together.AC I bought Ceaușescu’s cap, and a pair of socks.JR I also got a pair of socks. There was some very heavy bidding from a mysterious gentleman who got all the ornaments. The prices were getting pretty high so I stuck with the socks. I don’t even know where they are now. I bet you know where your stuff is.AC I do, actually.JR We have had many conversations over the years and generally I find I’m asking you questions because I’m trying to get ideas. I always think of you as a fantastic source of insights into the future. In the early days of social media, you were the very first person to say to me: “Don’t think of this as a utopia. There are some problems here.” There are two or three people in my life where, when they talk, I really want to listen to what they have to say, and you are one of those.AC That is completely not true. What actually happens is that I bollock on about theories which you completely ignore and then you go off on your stories. Anyway, I’m trying to remember when we actually met.JR I think the first time I met you was when I made the [1997] documentary Tottenham Ayatollah and you came to the screening.AC And your wife Elaine invited me to meet you in a cafe off Tottenham Court Road. She said: “Can you come and talk to him? Then you could take some of the pressure off me by talking about his film.”JR She probably said: “I can’t take it any more. He won’t stop agonising.”AC But when we met you didn’t agonise at all. I think what we recognised in each other – and it’s been the professional bond between us – is that we’re both interested in what happens outside those normal areas that most political journalists examine that involve politics and power. We want to look at things like psychology and how a conspiracy theory plays out and how feelings work through society.JR I’m really surprised at how frequently the things that we tell stories about overlap. But the way we go about it is so different. I think your brain works better thinking about theories and my brain works better thinking about stories.AC I think you and I are creatures of our time. I got interested in this idea that power now works not through traditional forms but through the idea of individualism; it says you should be allowed to do what you want to do, but we will serve you to get that. You and I both know what it’s like to be an obsessive individualist, but we’ve become intrigued by how that plays out in a society in which you’ve got lots of people wanting to be individuals. I’ve always had this theory that self-expression is the conformity of our age. The most radical thing you can do is something extraordinary like walking naked around the world, and not tell anyone that you’ve done it. You can’t post anything online. When you say that to people, they can’t conceive of it.JR I really like that idea.AC The other thing that we both do when we’re interviewing people is not follow a list of questions. You go into a situation where you have questions in your head but suddenly they’ll say something which is either funny or unexpected and you just learn to go with it. It’s like suddenly a little piglet swerves off from the herd, and you go with it up and over the hill.JR One positive thing that has been said about what I do is that there’s a sincerity to it. I never go into something with an idea of how it will turn out.AC We’re talking about sincerity? Don’t go there, Jon! You’ll be writing poems next.JR [Laughs] Well it’s really to do with trying to figure out what I think from my research without being told what to think by other people. I think people appreciate the fact that I’ve worked hard to come to the thoughts I’ve come to.AC Yes, I agree with that.JR I guess what we have in common is we’re not ideologues. We don’t go into a situation with a set of agendas. We’re more willing to be a twig in the river of the story and just go where it takes us. By doing that we’re forced to keep an open mind. I don’t even have a list of questions in my head when I’m interviewing somebody. I’m literally a tightrope walker with no safety net, and I have, on many occasions, plummeted to my death like in Squid Game.AC I think that open-mindedness is clear in your podcast. And it’s absolutely the right time to examine the roots of what we’re calling the culture wars, which is such a difficult and sensitive area. So much journalism, when it goes back into the past to see why something happened, always interviews the people who are defined as the actors, the people who consciously set out to [create conflict]. What I’m increasingly intrigued by is the people who were acted upon by that thing or idea. Because the way ideas or concepts play out in society are never the way that the people who started them think. What you’ve done in these programmes is follow individuals who are acted upon by these forces, because it shows you the real dimensions of what these things called culture wars are.JR Well, I realised that I would watch people become overconsumed by these cultural conflicts, to the extent that it was impacting their mental health and tearing families apart. But every show that’s about the culture ends up a part of the culture wars, and I didn’t want to do that. So I thought the way to do it was by focusing on a moment and a human story and tell that story in as unexpected a way as possible. In the end we found eight stories about the complexity of human life and they all happen to be origin stories. These are the pebbles being thrown in the pond and creating these ripples.AC Yes, these people have got caught up in the great tides of history that have come sweeping over them. It feels real. If you follow people who are acted upon, you start to understand, in a much more sympathetic way, why people do things that you might not like or approve of. You see how someone is led to something, with no idea of the consequences. In the first two episodes, you talk about how the evangelical movement up until the early 1970s had been completely detached from any involvement in the moral, political or social questions of American society. And what you trace is how two people got sucked into a particular issue, which then acted like a fuse to reawaken the evangelical movement.JR For decades the Christian right were silent: they consumed their own media, they went to their own churches and they listened to their own radio shows, and they were totally unengaged with what was happening. But then a few things happened that finally galvanised them into becoming soldiers in a culture war, and one was a new diversity of thought in school textbooks. In the series I talk to Alice Moore, who is in her 80s now and was one of the earliest cultural warriors for the evangelical right. She was a church minister’s wife in West Virginia who discovered there was going to be a new sex education lesson taught in schools, and she wasn’t having that. So she got on to the school board, and then the new curriculum arrived in 1974 that was full of all these multicultural voices, and things got so heated over just one semester that school buses were shot at – in fact, shots were fired from both sides – and a school was bombed. And I discovered while talking to Alice that one of the reasons for the intensity of the anger was a misinterpretation of a poem [that appeared in one of the new school textbooks].AC By Roger McGough!JR Yes. It was a poem [1967’s At Lunchtime: A Story of Love] that featured a spontaneous orgy that takes place on a bus, because the passengers thought the world was about to end at lunchtime in a nuclear war. So Alice was reading out this poem to me and I was thinking: “I don’t think this is in favour of spontaneous orgies on buses. I think this poet is agreeing with you, to an extent.” So then I went off to talk to Roger about it.AC And then you went back to Alice, and she was quite grumpy about it, which was funny. But I think this is a beautiful example of what we were talking about. As I was listening to that episode I was thinking: “Hang on, this isn’t quite as bad as she thinks it is.” And then, Jon’s brain is thinking the same thing, but without judgment.JR I like to steer clear of conflict as much as I can.AC Which is good and also rare. Most people would pursue her with their agenda. Right now, everyone is judged as either being good or bad. It’s good versus evil – that’s where journalism has got to now. But yours doesn’t do that.JR I’m interested in everybody as a human being and I’m quite startled by the myriad examples of the media being a part of the culture wars. It seems to happen everywhere, this mistelling of a story so it fits into a particular ideology a little more clearly. It happens on all sides. I get very disheartened when CNN lies to me or is biased or omits certain aspects of the truth to tell a certain version of the story. During the Trump years I really felt that with CNN. I felt like I was in QAnon and my Q was Anderson Cooper.AC I would read the New York Times all about the close friendship between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. And I know enough Russian journalists who I trust to know that it’s just complete rubbish. So hysteria happened on both sides. I mean if you go back over reports even from my own organisation, the BBC, about how Trump was actually an agent of Putin, it’s extraordinary. It’s a conspiracy theory. That’s as much of a panic as anything else you get on the right.JR I also think a lot of journalists are, like: “Oh my God. All this time I’ve just been a liberal but look at these things that are happening: Trump’s election, George Floyd.” So they think it’s not enough to be a liberal journalist, they have to be an activist journalist. And I think it’s completely understandable and, in some cases, it’s a great thing. But then in other cases, it’s really troublesome because journalism now has pre-existing ideologies.AC And then journalism lifts off from Planet Real and goes off into the realms of histrionic personality disorder. I actually think histrionic personality disorder describes most of the progressive classes in western societies, in that they’ve given up on their progressivism and retreated into a histrionic attitude to the world.JR I do think these stories tell us an awful lot about the way we live our lives today. In the satanic panic episode, which is about moral panics in the 1980s, you think it’s going to be about the parallels today with QAnon. But it becomes clear that there are also parallels with the panics on the left today, and that we all have these cognitive biases. I tell this story in which daycare workers are being accused of satanic activity, which clearly never happened, and where people actually went to jail. Suddenly it wasn’t just the Christian right worried about satanic cults at the end of your street, but mainstream America. When the flame is burning hot, we can all act in irrational, brutal or inhuman ways, and you see it across the spectrum.AC The series did make me think: how has this happened? Not just the culture wars but their ferocity. And where is the escape hatch? Because I think all sides now feel that there’s something not quite right. If you examine the years since Trump and Brexit, there has been this enormous hysteria in newspapers and on television about it. But actually the politicians have done nothing to change society. It’s almost been like a frozen world. So, I think the real answer to why this is happening is because politics has failed. It’s become this dead area, this desert surrounded by thinktanks, and someone’s got to get in there and regenerate it. The new politics is waiting to come. And I think it will happen.Jon Ronson’s Things Fell Apart continues Tuesday, 9am Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. It will be available in the US and Canada exclusively on BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. Adam Curtis’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head is on BBC iPlayer.TopicsJon RonsonAdam CurtisPodcastsPodcastingUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More