 |
|
|
|||||
Its not every day that a Republican from the Trump administration gets a standing ovation, or three, from a roomful of Democrats. But as Mike Pence showed on January 6, 2021, he doesn’t always stick to the party line. According to the former vice president, the attacks on the Capitol four years ago were ultimately unsuccessful and a triumph of freedom” because “our institutions held that day, not because of any one person, but because leaders in both political parties, Republicans and Democrats, did their duties, Pence said while receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in Boston at the JFK Library on Sunday. Pence received the award for putting his life and career on the line to ensure the constitutional transfer of presidential power. After repeated pressure to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won, Pence was to preside over Congress and the certification process, which includes counting the Electoral College votes, when a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the process. While the Secret Service urged him to evacuate, Pence, his wife, Karen, and their daughter Charlotte refused to leave the Capitol, coordinating with the military and congressional leaders during the attack. Once the Capitol was cleared, Pence resumed the certification process. In these divided times, in these anxious days, I know in my heart that we will find our way forward as one nation, Pence said, acknowledging the current Trump administrations agenda, without naming the president specifically. He added: It’s the Constitution that “binds us all together.” Unpopular positions, principled stands The awardnamed after President Kennedys 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, which recounts the stories of eight U.S. senators who risked their careers by taking principled stands for unpopular positionsis presented each year to public servants for making a courageous decision of conscience without regard for the personal or professional consequences. Kennedys daughter, Caroline Kennedy, and grandson, Jack Schlossberg, presented the award to Pence, acknowledging the new political climate of fear that has taken over in the last four months. We are especially grateful for your presence this year, as many are afraid to speak out or show up, Kennedy said. Its hard to believe that attending a black-tie gala could be described an act of couragebut here we are. President Kennedy called his time the hour of maximum danger and welcomed the challenge. We are living in a similar moment now. Just as President Kennedy famously stated, “my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” Caroline Kennedy said, now is the time to act because, as we have seen in the past 100 days, we can no longer take our democracy for granted.” “Everyone should be speaking their hearts” Those in attendance included Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who called Pence a profile in courage [for] standing up against a leader of his own party, and comedian David Letterman, who said, In this day and age, courage needs to be identified and celebrated in this way. It didnt use to be that way. When asked what Americans can do right now, Letterman told Fast Company: “They should be speaking their hearts. Everyone should be speaking their hearts. This was a moment when the vice president stood up for the constitution, and we have to all remember that today, U.S. presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin told Fast Company. History shows that people working from the ground up are what make all the changes. So its at your local area, its in your state, its in your city. Every changewhether its civil rights, womens rights, gay rightshas come from the ground up. Thats what we need to do. Previous award recipients include former presidents Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, and former Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
Category:
E-Commerce
Stock prices for Netflix, Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery fell this morning after President Trump took to social media to warn of major incoming tariffs for films made overseas. This Sunday, Trump used Truth Social to announce another escalation of his ongoing trade war. In the post, Trump claimed that Americas movie industry is dying a very fast death, as Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away. The president went on to call this rise of foreign production both propaganda and a national security threat, ending by stating that, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. Howard Lutnick, the U.S. commerce secretary, responded to Trumps rant with the brief note posted to X: Were on it. Neither Trump nor Lutnick provided any clarification on how such a tariff would be applied, or who might be affected. But this morning, production and streaming companies are already feeling the impact of Trumps proposed plan: Shares for Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount Global took a sharp decline in early Monday trading, although Disney has since quickly bounced back. A potential industry-wide “chilling effect” So far, Trumps announcement has left media experts scratching their headsand incited its fair share of backlash. First, its difficult to parse how an 100% tariff on movies produced in foreign lands would actually be implemented. Experts have noted that its unclear whether this tariff would apply only to foreign-language films imported to the United States or to any production shot overseas, including those led by major U.S. studios. Its also not apparent whether this move will affect streaming services like Netflix and Disney+, which host plenty of titles that are either fully foreign-made or produced in part in another country, and whether short-form content like TV shows will also be impacted. So many questions, Simon Pulman, an entertainment lawyer at Pryor Cashman, wrote on LinkedIn. Who is ultimately charged the tariff, and on what basis? Production spend? Distributor gross? Do you seek to hit the distributors and platforms that exhibit foreign-produced content? What about Netflix, whose titles do not generate direct revenue? What happens if production occurs offshore but post happens in the US? What about cross-border productions? It’s true that producers are filming more overseas In an interview with Fast Company, Pulman said that while the implementation of Trumps proposed plan is unknown, its main goal appears to be convincing major movie studios to bring production back to the U.S. In the wake of Hollywoods 2023 writer and actor strikes, its become more common for major Hollywood films (Gladiator II, the soon-to-be-released Mission: ImpossibleThe Final Reckoning, and several upcoming Avengers films, for example) to be produced at least partly overseas. Thats because, Pulman says, the strikes caused many production companies to reevaluate costs, while, simultaneously, foreign jurisdictions like the U.K., Hungary, and the Czech Republic began instating aggressive tax incentives for producers. Already, politicians and executives from Australia, New Zealand, France, and Italy have spoken out against Trumps plan. According to the nonprofit media tracker FilmLA, film and television production in Los Angeles has fallen by nearly 40% over the past decade. Given this offshoring trend, Pulman says, the idea of re-incentivizing production in the U.S. is laudable to some extent. But he thinks adding major tariffs to overseas production is more likely to both increase domestic ticket prices and decrease the number of movies being made rather than convincing American filmmakers to shoot in the U.S. To my knowledge, every jurisdiction, whether it’s a state in the U.S. or a country like France or Canada, they don’t achieve [more production] by penalizing companies that go offshore, Pulman says. They try to attract and incentivize companies to shoot in their jurisdictions by offering various benefits to them. The worst kind of Hollywood cliffhanger At this point, Pulman adds, its difficult to predict exactly how production companies will react to Trumps announcementbut he believes its most likely to have a chilling effect on the industry. The reality is, until we know the details, and until there’s actually some kind of plan here, we’re not going to have a true sense of what this means, Pulman says. But the challenge with that is it creates uncertainty. If you’re a major streamer or a major studio, you’ve got this potentially hanging over your head.
Category:
E-Commerce
When the email came from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jacques Agbobly at first didnt quite believe it. The Brooklyn-based fashion designer had only been in the business for five years. Now, one of the worlds top museums was asking for two of his designs to be shown in Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the exhibit launched by the starry Met Gala. I was just floored with excitement, Agbobly said in an interview. I had to check to make sure it was from an official email. And then the excitement came, and I was like am I allowed to say anything to anyone about it? Agbobly grew up in Togo, watching seamstresses and tailors create beautiful garments in part of the family home that they rented out. Studying fashion later in New York, the aspiring designer watched the Met Gala carpet from afar and dreamed of one day somehow being part of it. Superfine: Tailoring Black Style is the first Costume Institute exhibit to focus exclusively on Black designers, and the first in more than 20 years devoted to menswear. Unlike past shows that highlighted the work of very famous designers like Karl Lagerfeld or Charles James, this exhibit includes a number of up-and-coming designers like Agbobly. The range is phenomenal, says guest curator Monica L. Miller, a Barnard College professor whose book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, is a foundation for the show. It’s super exciting to showcase the designs of these younger and emerging designers, says Miller, who took The Associated Press through the show over the weekend before its unveiling at Mondays Met Gala, and to see the way they’ve been thinking about Black representation across time and across geography. The gala had already raised a record $31 million, Metropolitan Museum of Art CEO Max Hollein said Monday the first time the fundraiser for the Mets Costume Institute has crossed the $30 million mark and eclipsing last year’s haul of more than $26 million. Defining dandyism The exhibit covers Black style over several centuries, but the unifying theme is dandyism, and how designers have expressed that ethos through history. For Agbobly, dandyism is about taking space. As a Black designer, as a queer person, a lot of it is rooted in people telling us who we should be or how we should act dandyism really goes against that. Its about showing up and looking your best self and taking up space and announcing that you’re here. The exhibit, which opens to the public May 10, begins with its own definition: someone who studies above everything else to dress elegantly and fashionably. Miller has organized it into 12 conceptual sections: Ownership, presence, distinction, disguise, freedom, champion, respectability, jook, heritage, beauty, cool and cosmopolitanism. How clothing can dehumanize, but also give agency The ownership section begins with two livery coats worn by enslaved people. One of them, from Maryland, looks lavish and elaborate, in purple velvet trimmed with gold metallic threading. The garments were intended to show the wealth of their owners. In other words, Miller says, the enslaved themselves were items of conspicuous consumption. The other is a livery coat of tan broadcloth, likely manufactured by Brooks Brothers and worn by an enslaved child or adolescent boy in Louisiana just before the Civil War. Elsewhere, there’s a contemporary, glittering ensemble by British designer Grace Wales Bonner, made of crushed silk velvet and embroidered with crystals and the cowrie shells historically used as currency in Africa. There’s also a so-called dollar bill suit by the label 3.Paradis the jacket sporting a laminated one-dollar bill stitched to the breast pocket, meant to suggest the absence of wealth. How dress can both disguise and reveal The disguise section includes a collection of 19th-century newspaper ads announcing rewards for catching runaway enslaved people. The ads, Miller notes, would often describe someone who was particularly fond of dress or note that the person had taken large wardrobes. The reason was twofold: The fancy clothes made it possible for an enslaved person to cloak their identity. But also, when they finally made it to freedom, they could sell the clothing to help fund their new lives, Miller says. So dressing above ones station sometimes was a matter of life and death, the curator says, and also enabled people to transition from being enslaved to being liberated. The contemporary part of this section includes striking embroidered jackets by the label Off-White that purposely play with gender roles like displaying an ostensibly male jacket on a female mannequin. Views of an emerging Black middle and upper-middle class Stopping by a set of portraits from the early 19th century, as abolitionism was happening in the North, Miller explains that the subjects are Black men who were successful, well off enough to commission or sit for portraits, and dressed in the finest fashions of the day. Like William Whipper, an abolitionist and wealthy lumber merchant who also founded a literary society. They represent the beginnings of a Black middle and upper middle class in America, Miller says. But she points out a group of racist caricatures in a case right across from the portraits. Almost as soon as they are able to do this, she says, referring to the portraits, they are stereotyped and degraded. Projecting respectability: W.E.B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass W.E.B. Du Bois, Miller points out, was not only a civil rights activist but also one of the best-dressed men in turn-of-the-century America. He traveled extensively overseas, which meant he needed clothing befitting his status as a representative of Black America to the world. Objects in the display include receipts for tailors in London, and suit orders from Brooks Brothers or his Harlem tailor. There is also a laundry receipt from 1933 for cleaning of shirts, collars, and handkerchiefs. Also highlighted in this section: Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, writer, and statesman and also the most photographed man of the 19th century. The show includes his tailcoat of brushd wool, as well as a shirt embroidered with a D monogram, a top hat, a cane and a pair of sunglasses. Designers reflecting their African heritage One of Millers favorite items in the heritage section is Agboblys bright-colored ensemble based on the hues of bags that West African migrants used to transport their belongings. Also displayed is Agboblys denim suit embellished with crystals and beads. It’s a tribute not only to the hairbraiding salons where the designer spent time as a child, but also the earrings his grandmother or aunts would wear when they went to church. Speaking of family, Agbobly says that he ultimately did tell them and everyone about his pinch-me moment. Everyone knows about it, the designer says. I keep screaming. If I can scream on top of a hill, I will. Jocelyn Noveck and Gary Gerard Hamilton, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||