The Academy Expels Bill Cosby And Roman Polanski
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Thursday that it finally voted to expel actor Bill Cosby and director Roman Polanski. The expulsion occured in accordance with the Academy’s new Standards and Conduct procedures, which it implemented in the wake of Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement. And while this is certainly a positive development, it’s also a disarmingly delayed one: we’ve known that Cosby admitted to drugging women for sex since 2015, and Roman Polanski fled the US after pleading guilty to “unlawful sexual intercourse” with a 13-year-old in 1978. Read the full story at The Hollywood Reporter.
No Nobel Prize For Literature This Year, Amidst #MeToo Infighting On Panel
The Swedish panel that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature announced that they will not select a winner this year, and will instead award two winners in 2019. This is because the panel has been divided and crippled by infighting after the husband of one member was accused of assaulting 18 women last November. Read the full story at The New York Times.
Junot Diaz Accused Of Sexual Harassment
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz was accused of sexual harassment today by author Zinzi Clemmons, who tweeted, “I was an unknown wide-eyed 26 yo, and he used it as an opportunity to corner and forcibly kiss me.” Read more on Twitter.
via Twitter, @zinziclemmons
Two Additional Women Accuse R. Kelly Of Sexual Abuse
Early this morning, BuzzFeed reported that two additional women have accused R&B singer R. Kelly of sexual abuse. One of the women, Lizette Martinez, described a mentally and physically abusive relationship with Kelly that began when she was 17 (the age of consent in her home state of Florida is 18) and he was 28. The other, Michelle, is the mother of a young woman who still lives with the singer in what many describe as a cult. Read their full, harrowing stories at BuzzFeed.
Gigi Hadid Apologizes For Vogue Italia’s “Blackface Cover”
After Vogue Italia dropped a cover with a very, very bronzed Gigi Hadid, fans took to Twitter to complain that it looked like blackface. Hadid responded to the criticism yesterday, posting an image of her post-shoot face on Twitter to show that she had no control over the final, post-production edited image. “Please understand,” she wrote, “that my control of a shoot 1. is non existent in terms of creative direction 2. ends completely when I leave set, and anything done to a photo in post is out of my control fully.”
Hadid did acknowledge the validity of the criticism. “I want to apologize because my intention is never to diminish these concerns or take opportunities away from anyone else,” she said. “I hope this can be an example to other magazines and teams in the future.” Read Hadid’s full statement at Fashionista.
An All-Female, All-Black Science Team Enrolled In A NASA Competition; Internet Trolls Tried (Unsuccessfully) To Stop Them
After an all-female, all-black trio of high school students became finalists in NASA’s high school science competition for their innovative lead-removing water filter, 4Chan trolls tried to shut them down. When NASA opened the contest to public voting, the trolls encouraged their members to vote for a team of boys, and hacked into NASA’s system to manipulate the vote totals. After detecting this attempt, NASA shut down the voting and announced that the winner would be determined by a panel of judges. We know who we’re rooting for. Learn more at CNN.
This article was published on May 4, 2018. May the fourth be with you!
Photo Credit: Creative Commons, kalhh
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