Just as there really were African-Americans in the Old West, Westerns with Black casts (first shown to segregated audiences) were made from the 1930s through the Blaxploitation '70s and beyond. The latest example, The Harder They Fall, is fiction but depicts real historical figures. - The New York Times
Director Na Gyi and his wife (and leading actor) would be in hiding even if their latest film weren't about a lesbian romance: they gave financial help to people striking against the coup. Here's a Q&A he gave from a safe house. - The Hollywood Reporter
The long-running industry report card finds that in the 2020-21 television season, women accounted for 52% of major characters on streaming programs were women, while networks trailed behind with 45%. - Variety
"Forty-eight years after the original aired, Ullmann is still aghast at her character's decision to have a later-in-life affair with her ex-husband — 'In our version, I hated it!' she says — while Chastain sees it as 'free love,' something pure and beyond moral reproach." - New York Magazine
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is giving a total of $1.3 million to public stations in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Jackson, Mississippi to develop digital services offering "hip-hop/R&B music while remaining true to public radio's values." Similar channels are in place in Chicago, Denver, Houston, and Norfolk. - Inside Radio
That's how one screenwriter describes the unspoken task she and her Black colleagues usually face: "it's still white people determining what the Black experience is and then hiring Black writers to 'authenticate' it." Hannah Giorgis looks at those expectations and how Black writers handle them. - The Atlantic
A professor at Johns Hopkins found that middle-aged people who watched an above-average amount of television lost volume in the frontal cortex. (The Guardian's TV critic insists, however, that this can't be true if what you're watching is good, intelligent material.) - The Guardian
If the terrorist attacks had appeared like a movie, then the immediate response of Hollywood was that films released in the aftermath of the event should not be too much like 9/11. - The Conversation
The studios, of course, have a long and famous history of cluelessness when it comes to soundtracks. They’ve tossed countless original scores into the trash to reduce clutter. - Los Angeles Times
Julie Salamon's book stunned the country - especially Hollywood. It "portrayed the world of big-budget studio filmmaking as a high-stakes battle, in which three mercurial factions — the artists, the executives and the audience — are ever at odds with themselves and each other." - The New York Times
