Television
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With Stick to Sports, Jemele Hill and Cari Champion Refuse to Do Exactly That
Stick to sports. It’s an age-old adage that we’ve heard time and time again. Yet oddly enough, while LeBron James and Kevin Durant were lambasted for speaking out against Donald Trump’s tyranny, Laura Ingraham, the same Fox News host that told them to “shut up and dribble,” had an entirely different response in June when…
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The Best Part of Lovecraft Country's Premiere? What Happens to the Racist-est Racists
Of the several nits I have to pick with Watchmen—a show I am still infatuated with—the most prominent (and also the pettiest) is that the murderous racists didn’t die violent and painful enough deaths. One (Senator Keene) was literally liquified because of his own ego, and the other racists were zapped to oblivion by Lady…
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The Office's Leslie David Baker Victim of Racist Trolling After Launching 'Uncle Stan' Campaign
Early last month, Leslie David Baker—the actor best-known for the character Stanley on the hit show The Office—announced he was launching a Kickstarter campaign in order to get an unofficial spinoff about everyone’s favorite office grump up-and-running. As previously reported by The Root, the plot of Uncle Stan: Coming Out of Retirement revolves around the…
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Lovecraft Country and the Horror Story of America
Welcome to Lovecraft Country…or um, you know…welcome to America for Black folks. Based on the Matt Ruff novel of the same name, Lovecraft Country follows Atticus “Tic” Freeman (Jonathan Majors) who takes a road trip from Chicago across 1950s Jim Crow America to find his missing father Montrose (Michael Kenneth Williams). His childhood friend Letitia,…
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TikTok Trump Impersonator Sarah Cooper Scores Comedy Variety Show at Netflix, Maya Rudolph to Executive Produce
Sarah Cooper is one of the rare bright lights of 2020 because she has actually accomplished the impossible—making it so that the sound of Trump’s voice doesn’t automatically make me sick. In fact, her impersonation videos are the primary source of my Trump content now. I rarely watch anything having to do with President Pissy…
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Sterling K. Brown Discusses the Power of Black Storytelling in Media: 'Seeing Yourself on Screen Validates Your Life'
Sterling K. Brown paid a virtual visit to The Daily Show With Trevor Noah to discuss the importance of sharing and telling Black stories in the media. The This Is Us star explained that the beauty of the award-winning NBC series is that it gives an “interesting look at how much people can love each…
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Will Smith to Develop The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Drama Reboot Born and Raised From Viral YouTube Trailer
Remember that dramatic retelling of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that we all first noticed via social media? It went super viral—so viral, in fact, that Will Smith totally noticed it and gave his props to the filmmaker. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Will Smith and the trailer’s filmmaker Morgan Cooper will be adapting the…
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NBCUniversal's Peacock Announces 2 New and Timely Late Night Shows With Larry Wilmore and Amber Ruffin
NBCUniversal’s new streaming platform Peacock just announced some new comedy content that is very relevant and needed during these somber times. Amber Ruffin will be hosting The Amber Ruffin Show and Larry Wilmore will host the Untitled Larry Wilmore Show as part of the streaming platform’s weekly topical late-night block. You may know Wilmore from…
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Yes, Baby, Yes: Remember That Shelved Controversial Black-ish Episode? It's Now Available on Hulu
2020 is unprecedented-ish. Remember back in 2017, a mysterious Black-ish episode titled “Please, Baby, Please” (based on the Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee children’s book of the same name) became wrapped in some controversy because of its reported politically-charged themes? It caused such a ruckus, and I pretty much figured the episode would never…
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Social Cinematography: Ava DuVernay to Produce Docuseries Based on 'One Perfect Shot' Twitter Account
If you’ve been on Twitter for a good amount of time, you’ve probably seen whole-ass relationships, babies, careers, projects and deals materialize from Twitter. “It’s not just Twitter,” isn’t just a saying—it’s reality. As for the entertainment industry, one particular project we can point to is the upcoming film Zola, which came from an epic…