Featured Voices
The Family Trauma That Went Into ‘3 Body Problem’ (Guest Column)
A few months before 3 Body Problem launched on Netflix, I did something I’d never done before. I showed the opening sequence to my mother. The scene depicts a “struggle session,” a public rally where a physics professor is murdered by a group of young students after refusing to renounce his teachings. These events were […]
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The Man Who Helps the Stars Come Out
I came of age in my personal and professional life at a time when AIDS, that other pandemic, also came of age. Those were scary times. You couldn’t be your true self back then and if you tried, chances are the virus would find you. Almost everyone I knew during my coming out process are […]
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How David Beckham Changed My Mind From Thinking, “This Guy’s Going to Be Brutal,” to Directing His Doc (Guest Column)
I actually wasn’t that interested in David Beckham. I mean, I knew he was this famous, branded guy and that Victoria was a Spice Girl. I loved football. My first documentary was about Pelé and [Franz] Beckenbauer coming to America to play for the New York Cosmos. Then one of my dearest friends ended up […]
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No Conflict. No Celebrities. Great Dating Show: ‘Love on the Spectrum’ Shows How Not Only Instagram Models Are Deserving of Love
Early in production on season one of Love on the Spectrum in the U.S., we were filming at Abbey’s house in L.A. Abbey (we use only first names on the show), an autistic woman living at home with her mom, Christine, was 23 at the time, and Christine was talking to me about some of […]
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Tony Spiridakis Reflects on Making ‘Ezra’ and Fatherhood: “What Strength Looks Like” (Guest Column)
A decade ago, I was asked to do a TedX Talk about being the father of an autistic son, and another who is neurodivergent. That talk helped me decide to write a film that would focus on a father and a son who is autistic. Ezra, in theaters now, was inspired by many of my […]
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Fredrika Newton, Widow of Black Panther Party Co-Founder, Reacts to ‘The Big Cigar’ (Guest Column)
My name is Fredrika Newton. I am the widow of Dr. Huey P. Newton, who co-founded the Black Panther Party in 1966 with Bobby Seale while they were both college students at Merritt College in Oakland, California. Huey and the Black Panther Party are featured in a new series now streaming on Apple TV+ titled […]
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Reena Virk Does Not Need to Earn Your Sympathy (Guest Column)
It’s a Thursday morning and I’m barely awake when my phone greets me with a disturbing response to the fourth episode of Under the Bridge: tweet after tweet expressing anger, even hatred, toward Reena Virk. Someone saying, “I’m not even mad she gets killed.” I’m upset, but I wish I could say that I’m surprised. […]
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‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ Author Georgia Hunter on Entrusting Hollywood With Her Family’s Holocaust Experience Despite Reservations
As a kid, I adored my grandfather. I knew he loved chocolate (the dark kind) and hated ketchup. I knew he enjoyed a good pun and could speak seven languages — around the dinner table it was French. I knew his Steinway was his happy place, and that he made many of the things in his […]
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‘Daily Show’ Showrunner: Why We Switched Gears for the Election
Elections are a special time at The Daily Show. When I joined the show in 1998, we were anticipating the 2000 election. Bush v. Gore would later be called “the most consequential election of our lifetime,” but for us, it was also the most important one in the short history of the show. It was […]
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‘Girls on the Bus’ Creator on Critiques of Sadie’s Sex Life: “Female Journalists Have Zero Margin for Error”
The first several weeks in the writers room of The Girls on the Bus, the Max series about female journalists covering a presidential campaign, went like this: “Oh, what if Sadie sleeps with a candidate?” Me: “Absolutely not.” “How about a Democratic strategist?” “Hard no. She cannot sleep with a source.” “Well, what if she […]
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Critic’s Notebook: Everything to Know Behind the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar Rap War of Words
When wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer Shawn “Heartbreak Kid” Michaels takes to social media and invites you to settle your rap rivalry in the squared circle — or Saturday Night Live takes a deep dive with a sketch — you know your quarreling is so huge it has permeated the mainstream. The musical […]
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Sheryl Crow on AI in Music: “Congress Needs to Act Now” (Guest Column)
I am not a scientist. I am an artist. I cannot begin to spout scientific data on what we will become once artificial intelligence outsmarts us. I can read the predictions of how our workforce will be replaced by AI. I can read the warnings from Stephen Hawking that go back as far as 1996 […]
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