Featured Voices
Guest Column: Why Individual Stories Get Lost in the Fight for Abortion Rights
I spent three years filming in abortion clinics [while making 2016 doc Trapped], spending time in Mississippi, Alabama and Texas. Nothing that I knew before traveling to these places prepared me for what I would see. If you’ve spent time in the South, you’ll know what I mean when I say there are few things […]
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How I Became the Fake Tom Cruise
I wasn’t exceptional in college by any means. I studied English literature because I knew that charm and charisma could influence my overall grade in a way they couldn’t in math and sciences. I sang a cappella in a group whose repertoire was stuck in the 1940s and was a bottom-rung substitute on the squash […]
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Guest Column: Having More Women in Power Could Have Raised Urgency of Protecting Roe
Ketanji Brown Jackson’s June 30 swearing-in as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court was historic and inspiring. While her ascendance just six days after the court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade struck many as ironic and dispiriting, it should also serve as a powerful reminder that in Washington, D.C., as well as in […]
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Guest Column: What Hollywood Can Do After the Reversal of Roe v. Wade
We knew that Roe v. Wade was fragile. When Tara clerked on the Supreme Court nearly 18 years ago, it was clear that, for the most conservative Justices and law clerks, Roe was their tipping point. The ire with which it was viewed was palpable, down to apocryphal stories of law clerks who would go […]
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Guest Column: Feeding America CEO Calls on Hollywood to Make Donations Without Strings Attached
When I started at Feeding America in October 2018, I was honored and humbled to join an organization with which I had been familiar since I was a little girl. I came to the table with my own experiences, including my years at Walmart, and I recognized that the people we serve needed to be […]
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How the Emmys Adopted Groupthink
When the nominees for the Emmy Awards are announced July 12, don’t be surprised if the acting categories are dominated by performers from a handful of shows — likely Succession, Ted Lasso, Saturday Night Live, The White Lotus, Stranger Things, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Euphoria, Yellowjackets, Squid Game and Dopesick. Yes, this is the era […]
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‘Station Eleven’ Stars Matilda Lawler and Mackenzie Davis Deserve Emmys Recognition for Their Shared Role
In 2021, Claire Foy won her second Emmy for playing Queen Elizabeth on Netflix’s The Crown, a bizarre guest acting triumph for what was barely even a cameo. The easiest way to interpret Foy’s victory is that Emmy voters have lost all ability to judge guest acting categories, which require a complete overhaul. Or, looking […]
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Guest Column: How NBCUniversal Is Making Purpose a Work Perk
As corporate America continues to migrate back to the office following an unimaginable two-year-plus stint at home, many companies are now hyper-focused on how to keep employees engaged. Corporate citizenship has long been an important area of business, but we are at a pivotal moment where people are reevaluating their path in life and their […]
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Why ‘Yellowjackets’ Star Melanie Lynskey Deserves an Emmy Nomination
From a distance, you might mistake Yellowjackets‘ Shauna Sadecki (Melanie Lynskey) as a woman born to be overlooked. As a teen, played by Sophie Nélisse, she was the frumpier, more bookish best friend to effervescent golden girl Jackie (Ella Purnell); in the present, she’s a sullen suburban housewife who spends her days scrubbing shit stains […]
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How TV Is Embracing Late-in-Life Coming-of-Age Stories
For as fecund as Peak TV has been during the past decade, the glut hasn’t exactly yielded boundless perfection. In between all the flavorless revivals, franchise extenders, true-scandal dramas and star-studded gimmicks, this season I found myself grasping for simple shows that radiated unaffected warmth and vulnerability. I wanted sincerity. I wanted quietness. I wanted […]
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Guest Column: Introducing “Docuality” TV With Lizzo
Reality TV tends to skew negative. That’s true of the content, but also of the craft. Many shows are shot in a way that makes you feel like you’re outside the experience watching it. I’m a documentary filmmaker. I’m known for my visual style, for creating an immersive experience that’s bright, energetic and feels like […]
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Guest Column: How ‘Squid Game’ Creator Hwang Dong-Hyuk Created a Story That Knows No Borders
Life has always been difficult, a race from birth to death that you can only hope is populated with moments of transcendence and joy — a brief period of time that you endeavor to shape into something of meaning as you move through it. But for far too many, life is like some extreme competition […]
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