What are Alison and Tod talking about this week? Women who have the "voice of God,” people who achieved their dreams later in life and a mom shares her love for audiobooks.
What are Alison and Tod talking about this week? People are sharing the women who have the "voice of God" like Morgan Freeman. George Takei proves that it's never too late to achieve your dreams and a mom shares how audiobooks changed her life.
Plus, Adam Sandler gives a hilarious acceptance speech and Alison contemplates a new career as a pro wrestler.
15 years ago, Tom Atwood noticed something flipping through photography books capturing gay life: Everything looked the same.
The subjects were young. The aesthetics were trendy. They only featured people and stories in big cities.
Atwood, a gay photographer himself, had an idea: Why not capture LGBTQ people — ordinary folks and celebrities alike — living in the everyday?
In "Kings & Queens in Their Castles," a photo book documenting members of the LGBTQ community in their homes — including about 60 queer celebrities and influencers — Atwood finally brought his idea to life.
1. Meredith Baxter, actor ("Family Ties," "Glee"), thinks over the day ahead in her kitchen in Santa Monica, California.
All photos courtesy of Tom Atwood Photography.
“I think someone’s home tells you a lot about them," Atwood explains.
"When I began, I was shooting mostly subjects in New York, with their often dark, cramped spaces," Atwood told Feature Shoot. "I lived in L.A. for several years, and during that time, I noticed there was much more space and light in my photos. And I started including subjects in their yards. As I started shooting subjects across the country, including rural subjects, more land and sky appeared.”
2. Don Lemon, CNN host, takes a phone call on his New York City balcony wearing an outfit most will never see him in: a T-shirt, sneakers, and jeans.
3. Billy Porter, actor ("Kinky Boots," "Jesus Christ Superstar"), enjoys a room with a view in New York City.
4. Barney Frank, former U.S. congressman, feels at home behind his desk in Newton, Massachusetts.
5. Elizabeth Streb, acclaimed choreographer, and Laura Flanders, Air America radio host, surrounded by books and creative works in New York City.
Atwood's photos are a balance between reflecting the ordinary and the uniqueness of LGBTQ life.
“When I started, I really wanted to show that LGBTQ people are just like everybody else," he says. "Then I started to realize that for some people, there actually is a gay sensibility, and I wanted to celebrate that and feature it.”
6. Carson Kressley,Bravo and OWN television host, takes in his reflection, surrounded by walls of pink in New York City.
7. Bruce Vilanch, comedy writer and actor, has knocked out his groceries list in West Hollywood, California.
8. Doug Spearman, actor ("Charmed," "Star Trek: Voyager") and Marc Anthony Samuel, actor ("Imperfect Sky," "Parenthood"), relax in Los Angeles.
9. Alison Bechdel (right), cartoonist and author of "Fun Home," and Holly Taylor, compost maven, take in the greenery in Jericho, Vermont.
10. Alan Cumming, actor ("Hamlet," "Cabaret"), stands in front of his personal library in New York City.
11. Randal Kleiser, film director ("Grease," "The Blue Lagoon"), passes the time with his four-legged friends in Los Angeles.
True to the book's initial concept, however, most of the subjects featured in Atwood's book aren't celebrities.
Atwood traveled to 30 states through the years, documenting a diverse array of subjects coast to coast, from farmers and students to lawyers and beekeepers.
12. Lydia Brown, Georgetown University student and disability activist, surrounded by words of inspiration in Washington, D.C.
13. Patrick Standley and Matt Russell, farmers in Lacona, Iowa, look for a critter in the tall grass.
14. Rhea Reeves, a barista, pops open a drink in her cozy Raleigh, North Carolina, kitchen.
“The current political climate makes the book, which portrays LGBTQ folks from all walks of life, all the more necessary, in my opinion," Atwood told Feature Shoot. "It makes me extra eager to share it more broadly."
"I hope, in particular, that those in this country who emphasize differences among us might be able to relate to the subjects in the book — especially the dozens of rural and blue-collar subjects," said Atwood, who's originally from rural Vermont. "And that the book reminds them that there are LGBTQ folks living in their communities who are just like them in many ways.”
15. Anthony Bareto-Neto, former deputy sheriff in Barton, Vermont, stands in a world of green.
16. Jeff Mallory, nonprofit trustee, and Kevin Smith, writer, sit cross-legged by their pool with the Big Sur, California, sun shining down on them.
17. Gary Tisdale-Woods, community volunteer, stands in style in his Greensboro, Georgia, home.
“I also love the idea of having role models for kids,” Atwood says, noting young LGBTQ people may see themselves in these photos and realize there are people like them everywhere — not just in cities far away.
“It’s been touching — younger people have reached out after seeing the project and told me it’s inspired them to either come out or go into photography," he explains. "I think that’s nice to know that younger people can see these pictures and maybe discover someone they relate to in them."
18. David Meacham, drag queen, applies his makeup in Van Nuys, California.
19. Mary Celley and Sue Williams, beekeepers in Brooklyn, Wisconsin, work under a bright blue sky.
20. Ted Haykal, an artist in Peaks Island, Maine, gets cozy in his backyard fort.
The actor revealed that Sulu's relationship with his partner — with whom he has a daughter — would be treated as any other relationship in the film and essentially be "no big deal."
Lots of fans were thrilled.
But the announcement about Sulu's sexual orientation had a surprise critic: Takei himself.
Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images.
"I’m delighted that there’s a gay character," Takei told The Hollywood Reporter. "Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene [Roddenberry’s] creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate."
Takei explained that he believed that while "Star Trek" is ready for a gay main cast member, the decision to depict Sulu's same-sex relationship in a prequel recasts the Enterprise helmsman as closeted in the original series.
"Justin Lin, Doug Jung and I loved the idea of it being someone we already knew because the audience have a pre-existing opinion of that character as a human being, unaffected by any prejudice," Pegg said in a statement.
"Their sexual orientation is just one of many personal aspects, not the defining characteristic."
One fan who was particularly excited by the news was Dan Wohl, a California graduate student who asked for exactly this move in a 2013 essay published on The Mary Sue.
"J.J. Abrams, if you’re listening, I think you should make Sulu gay," Wohl wrote.
Giving Sulu a same-sex partner, Wohl argued — and treating their relationship as simply something that is — would not only be a moving tribute to Takei's life and work, but help begin to correct "complicated but ultimately disappointing history" of mostly ignoring LGBT themes and characters on "Star Trek."
Wohl told Upworthy that he was delighted by the news.
Photo from "Star Trek: Beyond"/Paramount Pictures.
"I think it's awesome, and I'm really glad they're doing it," he said.
While he expected that the franchise would eventually introduce LGBT characters, he explained that he didn't believe the writers of the film would actually choose a character with such a long history to be the series' first.
"It's very rare to have something that you want so much to happen in your fandom come true."
"The normalization of things is really powerful," Wohl explained, praising the creators of "Beyond" for choosing not to make a grand statement about Sulu's sexuality within the film.
Making Sulu's sexual orientation just one more facet of a character with decades of rich backstory rather than a major plot point, he said, is just as powerful as using the character to make a big, sweeping statement.
"Almost just as important is to show that the things that were fought for should be viewed as just parts of life."
While he criticized the franchise for being behind the curve on LGBT issues to date, Wohl hopes that with a new series about to launch on CBS, "Star Trek" will further affirm its inclusive values.
"What I really think 'Star Trek' could and should become a pioneer in is when it comes to trans characters," he said.
Similarly, he said, if the franchise does introduce a trans character or characters, it could break new ground by refusing to make their gender identity the focus of their arc.
"The only time that you basically see a trans character is when the story is about them being trans."
But first, the franchise is — thankfully, finally — boldly going ... where many have gone before.
The show "was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms," creator Roddenberry wrote in an essay on the "Star Trek" philosophy.
While creators, actors, and fans may disagree about the particulars, with "Star Trek," what else is new?
During World War II, a young boy was forced from his home with his family, placed on a cramped train, and sent to an isolated camp across the country with no knowledge of when he would be able to return home. He and his family were confined to camps for years, solely on the basis of their ethnicity.
This isn’t the story of an inhumane atrocity that happened across an ocean or in another country. It happened on U.S. soil in 1942.
And the young boy in this story is George Takei, the "Star Trek" actor, who was one of more than 117,000 Japanese-Americans detained in U.S. concentration camps during the early 1940s. He talked about his experience on Democracy Now!:
"We had nothing to do with the war. We simply happened to look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. But without charges, without trial, without due process — the fundamental pillar of our justice system — we were summarily rounded up, all Japanese Americans on the West Coast, where we were primarily resident, and sent off to 10 barb wire internment camps — prison camps, really, with sentry towers, machine guns pointed at us — in some of the most desolate places in this country: the wastelands of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, the blistering hot desert of Arizona, of all places, in black tarpaper barracks. And our family was sent two-thirds of the way across the country, the farthest east, in the swamps of Arkansas."
Japanese internment is a dark period in America's history, but in many history classrooms, the camps are only touched on briefly — if at all.
In my public school U.S. history curriculum, the internment camps were just a couple of paragraphs in a textbook, and we didn't talk about it in class at all. During college and through my own research, I learned so much more about the camps and the people inside of them — and why it's still important to talk about them.
Here are four key things that you should know - but might not have learned - about the forced relocation of Japanese Americans on U.S. soil.
1. Japanese internment began Feb. 19, 1942, and most evacuees were detained in the camps for about three years.
On that day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that paved the way for detainment and the relocation of Japanese-Americans. In the coming months, almost 120,000 West Coast residents were removed from their homes and sent to 10 camps across America.
The detainees were instructed to only bring belongings that could fit in one suitcase, and they were forced to leave behind their homes, businesses, and schools. Most of them had no idea if or when they would return. Can you imagine how terrifying that would be?
2. Most of the camps were isolated, and they lacked the resources and freedoms of the outside world.
The camps weren't fully constructed when the detainees were being evacuated, so some families were held in "assembly centers" like Tanforan, a racetrack. According to a survivor, they slept in horse stalls, didn't have access to running water or heat, and had limited access to bathrooms.
After Japanese-Americans were moved from the assembly centers to the more permanent camps, they usually lived in barracks, where there was limited privacy. The camps eventually had clinics and schools, but they were understaffed and under-resourced.
3. The detainees worked hard to make the camps feel like home.
Compared to the victims of the Nazi death camps, most of the people incarcerated in Japanese internment facilities had a much higher quality of life, and outright violence was rare. The detainees knew they wouldn't get to go home anytime soon, so they started making the camps their own.
Japanese-Americans wrote, published, and distributed their own newspapers in the camps. People who had been leaders in their communities pre-internment ran for elected office in their camp's community council. Young people put together bands and held dances. And even though most of the camps closed in 1945, survivors still meet periodically for reunions.
4. When the camps closed, many Japanese-Americans didn't — or couldn't — go back home.
In his interview, George Takei said that going back to California from the camp in Arizona was a "horrific, traumatic experience." Because the internment period devastated businesses owned by Japanese-Americans, many families lived in poverty in the years after the war. The families who were detained left almost everything behind, but there was very little to come back to.
"We lost everything. We were given a one-way ticket to wherever in the United States we wanted to go to, plus $20. And many people were very embittered about their West Coast experience, and they chose to go to the Midwest, places like Chicago or Milwaukee, or further east to New Jersey, New York, Boston. My parents decided to go back to Los Angeles. We were most familiar there. But we found that it was very difficult. Housing was impossible. They would deny us housing. Jobs were very, very difficult." — George Takei, via Democracy Now!
We want to think that something as terrible as uprooting and imprisoning an entire ethnic group could never happen in America, but it did. And it could happen again (just ask Donald Trump and his supporters).
Meanwhile, Broadway has celebrated actors, writers, choreographers, and directors of color on the stage for decades, with several big names earning multiple awards in their lifetime — a feat few Hollywood actors of color have been able to achieve.
Left to right: Patina Miller, Cicely Tyson, and Billy Porter at the 2013 Tony Awards. Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images.
Here are three easy lessons Hollywood can learn from Broadway.
Because if the Great White Way can make money telling stories by and about people from traditionally underrepresented groups, then why can't Hollywood?
Lin-Manuel Miranda (left) performs with the cast of his 2008 hit "In the Heights." Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images.
1. White, straight Americans aren't the only ones living the human experience.
It seems obvious, but sadly, many Hollywood insiders still don't get it. Broadway is winning by sharing and celebrating the rich stories, traditions, and cultures of traditionally underrepresented people.
Or the story of five women during Liberia's civil war in the upcoming "Eclipsed." Written by Danai Gurira (who you may know as Michonne from "The Walking Dead") and starring Lupita Nyong'o, it's the first Broadway production to boast an entirely black cast and all-female creative team.
Even seeing a familiar story through a different lens can be quite revolutionary. That's how Lin-Manuel Miranda made American history come alive in his hip-hop infused musical "Hamilton."
Miranda accepts the award for Best Musical Theater Album at the Grammys. Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images.
While the experiences may look unfamiliar on the outside, all of these stories hit themes that are deeply personal and universal: perseverance, love, and hope. And contrary to movie previews, white, straight people aren't the only ones who experience these things.
2. Challenge the status quo, rake in the dough.
(This one rhymes so you know it's true. )
While originality, writing, and creating new stories are important, Broadway has a long history of reviving older musicals and plays to offer a fresh take on these well-loved stories.
One way to breathe new life into long-running musicals and plays is with color-blind casting.
Actresses of color like Brandy Norwood and Carly Hughes have taken on the lead roles in the long-running Broadway classic "Chicago."
Hughes performs during a rehearsal for "Chicago." Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images.
And in the summer of 2015, actor Kyle Jean-Baptiste became the youngest and first African - American actor to play the role of Jean Valjean in "Les Misérables."
Sadly, just days after the end of his historic run, 21-year-old Jean-Baptiste died after falling from a fire escape.
Color-blind casting for these eminent roles is a great way to broaden the talent pool and opens up opportunities for actors of color. Plus it freshens up these long-running shows and gives customers new reasons to see them again and again. Or, in Hollywood terms, "cha-ching."
3. There's no such thing as niche. A good story can appeal to anyone.
The true story of a lesbian cartoonist telling the tale of her dysfunctional family, including her closeted father's suicide.
Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions.
A coming-of-age story based on a 19th century German play that touches on abortion, child abuse, and other tough themes, performed in English and American Sign Language.
A musical based on the real story of a young man who turns his dead father's shoe company into a place to make stiletto heels for drag performers.
Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions.
These aren't small productions. These are synopses for "Fun Home," the revival of "Spring Awakening," and "Kinky Boots." "Fun Home" and "Kinky Boots" have both recouped their investments and cleaned up at the Tony Awards. And all three shows have or will soon begin national tours.
Considering the average ticket holder for a Broadway production is a middle-aged white woman from outside New York City, this is no small feat. It's a reminder that people don't need their characters to look or behave just like them because at heart, good stories are universal.
It's not hard, Hollywood.
All you need is a great story, millions of dollars, and a few people willing to take a chance on storytellers, actors, and creators who want to bring unique offerings to life. They won't all be hits, but that's a risk you're already taking.
At least this way, we'll get compelling stories; see representations of different cultures, traditions, and populations; and open ourselves up to greater empathy. Oh, and better movies. We'll definitely get better movies.
