'Stonewall' and portrayals of LGBT history, Mexican indie star Natalia Lafourcade's latest album, a part husky, part wolf that could be euthanized.
If 'Stonewall' gets LGBT history wrong, who gets to make it right?
Critics are hurling bricks at the new movie "Stonewall." White-washed, silly and disastrous are just some of the things they've said.
The movie is a fictional take on the 1969 riots at the New York City gay bar the Stonewall Inn. Many say the event is one of the most important historical moments in the history of the LGBT rights movement.
It's widely believed that most of the demonstrators there were transgender people, drag queens, homeless youths and people of color.
But when the trailer made it seem like a strapping, corn-fed white gay man led the demonstrations, people called for a boycott.
"A historically accurate film about the Stonewall Riots would center the stories of queer and gender-noncomforming people of color," reads one online petition.
Director Roland Emmerich, who is gay himself, believes he honored the history of Stonewall with his retelling.
When so many different people are a part of the LGBT community, who gets to tell that history? And who's left out?
Where the riots really began
The 1969 Stonewall Riots is the pivotal event most well-known to the LGBT community.
Less remembered are protests that came beforehand, many of them happening in Los Angeles.
In 1959, the first documented riot happened when LGBT people clashed with the police at Cooper's Donuts in downtown LA (now a parking garage on Main Street).
The first protest of a police raid on a gay bar also happened in Los Angeles at the Black Cat Tavern in Silverlake (the building still stands today, now as the gastropub The Black Cat).
But Mia Yamamoto, a criminal defense attorney and a transwoman, thinks the Stonewall Riots are most remembered because they followed the Civil Rights Movement.
"It looked so much like Selma, Alabama," she says. "It looked so much like the police overreacting and people fighting back. The image of it inspired a lot of people."
Stonewall also got much more coverage because of a population that lived close together to spread the word, and a sizable number of news outlets to cover the chaos.
There is no single narrator of the LGBT movement
Telling any one story of the LGBT rights movement is complicated because it's not a group that always sees eye-to-eye.
"Who is us?" wonders Marcus Anthony Hunter, professor at UCLA. "Who's madder when things go down that have impacted the community?"
"We are a group of people who are connection, by virtue, of only sexual orientation or gender identity, and we're different in virtually every other respect," adds Lorri Jean, CEO of the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
They concede making everyone happy with "Stonewall" is a tough proposition.
"It's a lot of people to talk about. It's a very hectic time," says Hunter. (Disclaimer: none of our guests had seen the film at the time of our interview.)
They all questioned the choice of telling the story of the Stonewall riots through a white gay male character, too.
Hunter suggested that he would've hoped for a story told through the eyes of Marsha P. Johnson, the drag queen and activist credited with starting the riot.
"But the commercial viability – always think about what it is," says trans activist Mia Yamamoto, aware of the Hollywood machine. "This is a black trans woman who was historically the first person to start the violence against the police. But her story is not commercial in the sense that they're not going to depict it unless there's a guarantee of a financial return."
Divisions also spring up in how to push the movement forward.
Lorri Jean says the Center, the first of its kind in 1969, was at the center of many battles among its members.
"There were times in the Center's history that all the people of color left because of feelings that the folks who were in power were racist," she says. "All the women marched out from feelings of sexism from the people who were in power."
Jean recalls when she was hired in the early 1990s, and two LGBT publications told the story in vastly different ways.
One said the Center was only filled with men and her hire was a cynical token gesture to women. Meanwhile, another said the Center was only filled with women and her coming on board was proof of that.
"Our community is a microcosm of society in general, and we experience a lot of the same -isms that everybody else faces: racism, ageism, anti-transgender bias," says Jean.
They all hope that this movie makes people curious to learn more about the Stonewall riots as well as other events in LGBT history.
"But we put so many of our hopes and dreams in the few things that come out that it's almost asking too much," says Jean.
How low-income tenants can tackle mold, mice, other living condition issues
Many people living in substandard and unhealthy housing don't speak out about it. They may not know where to turn, or fear that speaking out could leave them homeless.
Elena Popp is a tenants' rights attorney and the executive director of the Eviction Defense Network. She says there are two common reasons why low income families don't speak up about subpar living conditions.
"I think the most common reason is that folks don't know where to call, and the second most common reason is that even if they know where to call, they're afraid of retaliation or reprisals from the owner," she said. Popp noted that she's seen cases of eviction, rent increases and even harassment like turning off utilities.
She offered tenants these tips for tenants facing housing quality issues:
- Send a written letter or about your issue with proof that you wrote it, send it certified and your landlord has to address the issue within 30 days. Emailing your landlord also works.
- If that doesn't work, call county code enforcement if this is an issue dealing with vectors for disease, like rodents, roaches and mold. Popp recommends calling city code enforcement as well.
- Landlords are also not allowed to offer a unit "as-is." Popp says there is an implied warranty of habitability, or that every tenant has right to unit that is habitable.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
Natalia Lafourcade gets personal and talks about her latest album, 'Hasta La Raiz'
A couple of days ago the nominees for the Latin Grammys were announced and one of the most-nominated - Mexican singer/songwriter Natalia Lafourcade who picked up five for her latest album "Hasta La Raiz."
Natalia's done pretty well for herself so far. She's been a grammy contender since her first self-titled album was released in 2003, when she was just a teenager.
"I didn't know that [the] album was going to get so famous... And I didn't know what to do. Because it was overwhelming. It was too much for me, so I went crazy," Lafourcade explains to A Martinez in a recent interview. "I would cry all of the time and I didn't know why! I was having shows and after the show I would go to the room, order a big hamburger and a vanilla shake or something like that... and cry because I was so depressed... I think it was because I was too tired. It was a lot."
She's come a long way since those days having released five albums by now, garnering pletny of awards.
Lafourcade explains that her latest work, "Hasta La Raiz," took her two years to put together. During that time she would record rough drafts of her work using Voice Memo on her iPhone, which came with its own set of risks. She lost the phone that had a lot of her work on it and had to make it up all over again.
The song "Nunca Es Suficiente" did make it to the final album, however. It was conceived one night with one of her friends who had called her to ask her if she wanted to help her write a song for another artist. "In the middle of this session, we were having this conversation about our relationships and our boyfriends. And we were both like having this weird moment with our couples. I think after the wine and after the conversation all that just came out for this song. And when we finished the song we were like, "NO! We can not give this to anybody. This is ours.""
Natalia goes deeper into the stories behind her album during the full conversation that she had with A Martinez. To hear the entire thing click on the audio link embedded above.
Ondi Timoner on fame, Russell Brand documentary 'Brand: A Second Coming'
British comedian Russell Brand is best-known to American movie fans as Aldous Snow, the promiscuous, drug addled rock and roller who lands Jonah Hill in hot water in the comedy "Get Him to the Greek."
In real life, Brand has struggled with an addiction to drugs. He's also had a complicated relationship with fame, especially after his brief marriage to singer Katy Perry.
Those struggles and Brand's new turn as a political activist are captured in a new documentary titled "Brand: A Second Coming."
The film was directed by Ondi Timoner, who is no stranger to films about our curious relationship with fame. Her 2009 documentary, "We Live in Public," looked at the effect of the Internet and putting so much of our lives online for all to see.
Joining Take Two to discuss:
- Ondi Timoner, director, "Brand: A Second Coming"
Timoner will discuss the film Friday night at the Arclight in Hollywood. Click here for details.
Karma, the wolf-dog of Anaheim, slated to be euthanized
Time is running out for Karma, a 4-year-old part husky, part wolf canine from Anaheim.
Karma was taken from her home in May after her owners were arrested in a domestic violence incident, according to Erika Ritchie, who has been covering Karma's story for the OC Register. After discovering Karma's partial wolf genetics, and that she had allegedly killed a cat in the past, Orange County Animal Care deemed Karma vicious through a city ordinance.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors ruled this week to keep Karma slated to be euthanized, a decision first made by Orange County Animal Care.
Part of the discussion about the cat's death has revolved around the possibility that Karma had been left without food.
"Those are some of the things that Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who's been working to try to get some help for Karma, mentioned during the board meeting on Tuesday," said Ritchie. "As far as the records from Orange County Animal Care, I don't know if any of that evidence is in there, but that has been discussed."
In addition, Ritchie says testing showed Karma's wolf genetics are only .15, which has been a point of contention for animal advocates.
"That's been a matter of discussion about whether or not she is really wolf, how much wolf she really has," she said. "But basically the bottom line is because she does have that in there, there's a question as to whether or not rabies vaccine is effective on a dog that has wolf content."
People from all over the world are now trying to intervene and save Karma's life.
"It's been crazy. I have written lots of interesting stories that have raised the public ire, but I have never gotten so many emails myself, just from people worldwide trying to save her," said Ritchie. "Everybody's trying to do what they can to save her, and trying to find some way legally that might be a chance for the judge to reverse this decision."
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
Reading by Moonlight: David Kipen's literary picks
In this edition of Reading by Moonlight, Libros Schmibros founder David Kipen shares his reading picks for the month:
- The reissue of "Eve's Hollywood," by Eve Babitz
- "Clifton's and Clifford Clifton: A Cafeteria and a Crusader," by Edmond J. Clinton III
- "Broken Sleep," by Bruce Bauman
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above