Claudette Colbert, Director? by P.M. Bryant

On Oscars Eve, let’s lead with this fascinating article about what might have been for Claudette Colbert. As a major Hollywood star and winner of an Academy Award, Colbert should have had the power to set her own path in the movie business, but her aspirations towards stepping to the other side of the camera to become a director were thwarted by the chauvinism that largely blocked women from that role for decades. Writing for Bright Lights Film Journal, P.M. Bryant compellingly tracks through Colbert’s persistent attempts to make the professional shift, including one moment in the early nineteen-fifties when she was tantalizingly close to pulling it off until a ill-timed injury got in the way. Because this is about the possibility of women breaking into the directing field in the middle of the twentieth century, the great Ida Lupino naturally makes an appearance.

Gene Hackman’s Simple Truth by Ben Stiller

It is fitting that an actor who brought complexity to everything he did has inspired appreciations and remembrances that allow room to note that Gene Hackman could be a challenging co-worker. In particular, his time working on The Royal Tenenbaums, which contains one of the great actor’s greatest performances, was fairly unhappy. That hasn’t dimmed the appreciation his costars had for Hackman’s work. Bill Murray said as much on Drew Barrymore’s talk show, and Ben Stiller shares his own thoughts in this piece written for The New York Times.

University of Cincinnati Protests Lead to “Biological” Bathroom Signs Reversal by s. baum

It should by now be clear that, to trot our a well-used phrase, that the cruelty is the point for Republicans. They proudly enact regressive, repressive measures against communities that already endure demeaning prejudice on a regular basis but who, according to those right-wingers, simply aren’t punished enough. As s. baum makes clear in this piece about University of Cincinnati students aggressively pushing back on the deliberately demeaning signs unceremoniously slapped outside of campus bathrooms, the only proper way to meet this moment is loud, concerted refusal to abide by their mean-spirited rules. The hateful authoritarian wannabes who are running roughshod over various sections of national, state, and local governments right now are counting on cowed obedience. Deny it to them at every turn. This article is published by Erin In The Morning.