Art

The BBC has admitted to serious and unacceptable flaws in the making of its Gaza documentary, saying public trust in its journalism has been damaged.

Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone failed to disclose that its child narrator, a 14-year-old boy named Abdullah, was the son of a Hamas official.

In a statement, the broadcaster also revealed that the boy’s family had been paid for his involvement.

Hoyo Films, the independent production company, knowingly misled the BBC about the child’s links to Hamas, but the corporation said it should have carried out its own checks.

Just a thought, but how much independent journalism has there been out of Gaza? So when a fulkly formed and – so I’m told – rather well made documentary pops up then…..

A gallery ordered by police to take down a painting of a naked cowgirl has opened an exhibition of dozens of nudes in protest against “provincial prudery”.

Nekkid cowgirls not so much.

Apparently so:

Theatres and drama schools have been offered “plus-size inclusivity training” to tackle “fatphobia” and help the industry become “more inclusive for bigger bodies”.

Kim Tatum dreams of playing Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard’s exquisite former star of silent films. Mariah Louca longs to perform as Dangerous Liaisons’ evil schemer Marquise de Merteuil. And for Reece Lyons, it’s the monstrous ambition of Lady Macbeth that makes her the ideal role. But, until attitudes within British theatre shift, it’s unlikely these talented performers will get to play their dream characters. Despite their skill, training and accolades, trans women just don’t seem to get cast in cisgender roles.

“I have never seen a trans woman on stage play a mother or a love interest,” Offie-award-winning Lyons says. “Why don’t we come to mind for that?” Lyons is sitting on a low couch in a light-streamed room across from Tatum and Louca. Frustrated with the constant obstacles they face in the industry, the three actors are calling for trans women to be put on an equal footing for cis roles.

Sigh.

One obvious answer is that you’re a bloke so casting will be influenced by that. But let us move on from such obvious prejudice. It’s already well established that Eddie Redmayne wouldn’t get that trans part these days. Because cis is not allowed to play trans, obvs. If them’s the rules then them’s the rules. But basic fairness would then insist that trans don’t get to play cis.

Either it’s all dress up and casting is entirely open to the vision of the director and everyone esle gets to shut the fuck up – or it isn’t. And if it ain’t then you’re screwed, right?

Running the cash-strapped Southbank Centre: ‘We feared Cate Blanchett would get stuck in a lift!’

Is, as we know, “If she’s fugly, she can”.

The point is not that pretty women – even beautiful ones – cannot, by definition, act. It’s that some people – male and female – get acting jobs simply because they’re so stunning looking. An actual ability to act is not a necessary requirement for a job as an actor that is.

However, if we find someone who does not have those stunning looks who also gets acting jobs then the assumption – even, if we are to take the law seriously, not something that is wholly necessary – is that the individual can act.

If she’s fugly she can.

Sydney Sweeney has hit back at a “shameful” Hollywood producer who criticised her acting ability and asked, “Why is she so hot?”.

The actress, who was nominated for two Emmys this year, said that she felt “unjustly disparaged” after hearing the comments made by Carol Baum.

Earlier this week, Ms Baum told the audience at a film screening that the 26-year-old was an “actor that everyone loves now” but that she “didn’t get” the hype surrounding the White Lotus star.

“I said to my class, ‘Explain this girl to me. She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?,” Ms Baum, who teaches at the University of Southern California, said.

Ms. Sweeney has a couple of distinctive assets which may – or may not be – the basis of her career. Thus not a proof, either way, of the law – as yet.

So, the question becomes, who thinks she’s going to be gaining headline acting jobs in 20 years time?

The BBC, Ofcom and now the British Museum – why do the Tories keep interfering in cultural appointments?
Charlotte Higgins

You take the money from politics then politics will determine how much money there is and who gets it.

That’s actually the point of politics, to decide over the disposition of our shared and communal resources.

Non-disabled Richard III actor to press on despite calls for recast

How dare they use a non-Royal to play dress up?

AI is the revenge of school science nerds against smug creatives
Arty types are about to become the middle-class equivalent of miners – the future is bleak

We mechanised realistic painting with photography. People still became painters.

The art of being creative is to, well, be creative, no? Do the stuff that others and machines cannot do?

AI might well be a danger to plodders like me, but to creatives?

Mark Rylance says he took garlic solution instead of Covid vaccine
Actor claims ‘science started to sound like religion’ and says a friend broke up cancer cells with the vibrations of a Tibetan sound bowl

Actors may be very good at readin’ out words written by others. This does not make their own views sensible or even consistent with reality.

Something worth remembering when they try to tell us something about economics.

Britain’s ever-harsher welfare system means that now only the rich can afford to make art

The problem is?

The pre-Afrofuturist mythology of Drexciya is explored in an immersive and ambitious exhibition from Ayana V Jackson

You do that then.

Master’s degree in how to be a drag queen slammed as a ‘Mickey Mouse’ course
Rose Bruford College, which counts Gary Oldman among its alumni, has opened applications for its Queer Performance master’s degree

Outrage! Outrage!

Rose Bruford College (formerly Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance) is a drama school in the south London suburb of Sidcup. The college has degree programmes in acting, actor musicianship, directing, theatre arts and various disciplines of stagecraft.

Sigh.

Gemma Arterton: ‘In real life, I’m quite silly’

Actress reveals herself as serious intellectual.

Artists working in the public sector are struggling to stay afloat amid a culture of low fees, unpaid labour and systemic exploitation, research shows.

A survey of people engaged by everything from flagship galleries to smaller projects found an overall median hourly rate of £2.60 an hour, dramatically below the UK minimum wage of £9.50.

It exposes how many artists, especially those from less privileged backgrounds, have to sustain multiple additional jobs to subsidise poorly paid commissions in the public sector. Some told of deciding to leave the art world entirely to protect their mental health and financial security.

So, public art just isn’t working. Super, abolish the Arts Council then.

When Emma Corrin shared hopes of starring in a “gritty” Scottish film with “an outrageous accent” it seemed she simply wanted a change from playing the upper crust young Princess Diana in The Crown.

However, now the Netflix star has been accused by a fellow actress of “working class tourism”.

Jessica Barden, best known as the rebellious teenager Alyssa in the Channel 4 comedy drama The End of the F***ing World, said “posh actors” should not stray into depicting characters from poorer backgrounds like her own.

Mustn’t do dress down, of course. That would be a gross violation of all that it means to be an actor.

Gonna be difficult doing all those historical romances as there are very few actual Dukes and Viscounts in the profession.

The Crown’s Emma Corrin: ‘I’d love to play male and non-binary parts’
Actor famed for portraying Diana, Princess of Wales reveals desire to star in diverse roles two years after coming out as non-binary

After all, we’re told – endlessly – that white actors cannot take black or Asian parts, that straight should not take gay, that male should not take trans. So, logically, non-binary should not take female, right?

Or doesn’t it work like that? Because reasons?

The multi-Oscar-winning English costume designer Sandy Powell, who will make film history this month when she accepts a prestigious Bafta fellowship, is “terrified” by the lack of experimental live performance being staged in Britain, she says.

Powell is one of film’s most garlanded talents, working regularly with Martin Scorsese, but she now fears that the connection between a thriving alternative theatre scene and the commercial world of mass entertainment has been cut.

“It’s a desperate situation and means we’ll get formulaic kinds of creativity. A lot of the fringe theatre work is not out there any more because old funding routes have gone, and that was always how you learned the value of taking artistic risks,” she told the Observer.

Great, so those who make lots of money from the commercial theatre should be spending some of that on supporting their feedstock, their supply line, in fringe theatre.

Job done. Just as Porsche is funding synthfuel……

A thought about that picture. And, actually, a thought about much art from before recently.

It seems fairly obvious from recent imagery that a substantial portion of the population is interested in big tits. The existence of the Wonderbra (or, perhaps sales of it) show that women know this.

OK, so why in all of those centuries upon centuries of paintings are there few to no representations of big tits? It can’t be that all artists ever were gay, like the fashion designers of today.

My best guess is that nutrition meant that substantial embonpoints simply were not a thing until recently.

So, why am I wrong?

Belinda Blinked was his 63rd book
Or his 65th. He can’t be tied down on specifics and why should he be? Before the lucrative move to business pornography, the self-publishing star wrote short, humorous books such as How to Buy a House in Brazil and How to Survive the Brazilian World Cup. Since his soaraway podcast success, these titles now sell … up to eight a week.

If that’s 8 a week each then that’s $120k a year* which is pretty good. It might not be, might be 8 a week in total tho’.

*Assuming $10 cover price and no, I’m not going to go check.

Or as he delicately puts it: “I write best in the sun … with not many clothes on.” The literary powerhouse can knock out 1,200 words in just two hours and types it all on to “the cheapest possible computer”.

It’s an interesting commentary on what journos think is hard work these days. That per hour can be somewhat taxing, in the sense that you’d not want to try doing it for 10 hours a day. But for an hour at a time? Trivial.