“For her entire career, the Hollywood powers that be have constantly told Gina Prince-Bythewood one story: her critically acclaimed films, which center Black women and the stories of marginalized people (like Love & Basketball and Beyond the Lights), don’t travel well overseas. Now the award-winning director’s latest project, The Old Guard, is a big-budget
“Within the first five minutes of Disclosure, it’s apparent the film is something special. The unprecedented original Netflix documentary spotlights more than a century of trans, queer and non-binary representation on screen, through the lens of trans actors, producers, directors, writers, activists, historians and culture critics. Disclosure serves as more than just
Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States and lockdowns began nationwide, media mogul and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey has been looking for ways to help. After signing a major development deal with Apple TV, she’s been releasing a series of free coronavirus-related content on the platform to help viewers cope with our new reality.
“Who is #BlackAF for? To whom is Barris trying to prove Blackness? And when half the writers’ room is made up of white people, what does “Black AF” even mean? The series provides conflicting answers to the first two questions, and despite several scenes showing white writers in a writers’ room of
With Valentine’s Day approaching, the season of love is upon us. But who gets to be loved—fiercely, boldly, wildly—on screen has too often been limited to certain kinds of women. The messages of these on-screen images seep into our consciousness and reinforce what other elements of society teach us about
Attorney Bryan Stevenson is trying to tell us something. One of the greatest civil rights leaders of our time, Stevenson’s life’s work has been to defend the indigent and condemned through the legal system. His New York Times best-selling book Just Mercy, which details his life and his fight for justice for his
At the 10th anniversary of Black media site The Root’s annual ‘The Root 100’ gala celebrating the 100 most influential African Americans of 2019, Shadow And Act’s managing editor Brooke Obie received her award for the bombshell Shadow And Act exposé How ‘Green Book’ and the Hollywood Machine Swallowed Donald Shirley
Eddie Murphy is back like he never left, starring in the new Netflix film Dolemite Is My Name. I sat down with Murphy to talk about his legacy. Here’s a brief clip from our chat: Watch all of my celebrity interviews, from Oprah to Ava DuVernay and subscribe to my
As managing editor of Shadow & Act, Brooke Obie conceived and launched the site’s first-ever digital cover, featuring four of the site’ 2019 RISING Award winners, Logan Browning, James Bland, Jermaine Johnson and Olivia Morris. On Friday, February 22, 2019, just days before Old Hollywood’s biggest night, two hundred people
Just hours before Shadow And Act sat down with Oprah Winfrey and Tarell Alvin McCraney to chat about their new OWN series David Makes Man, news broke that Toni Morrison had died. There had been an atmospheric shift at the literary giant’s transition into an ancestor, and to not discuss the