Ava DuVernay
-
10 Thoughts About Queen Sugar and Last Night’s Season Finale
Warning: There will be spoilers. You have been warned. If you haven’t seen it yet, get your life. 1. It was fun watching the postshow special and trying to see myself in the crowd (I didn’t, but I also didn’t watch the whole thing—had to get the babies to sleep and whatnot). The experience of…
-
Hey, Y’all, I Met Oprah. Here’s What Happened
A little backstory on how we got to the point where this is even a thing: On Nov. 17, 2016, I wrote a piece called “Queen Sugar Hits This Dad Right in the Feels.” By the end of that day, life was different; anything was possible. The piece published first thing in the morning that…
-
‘I’m Black!’: Director Ava DuVernay Celebrates Her Heritage on Finding Your Roots
Ava DuVernay is black, y’all. The director and producer extraordinaire and all-around example of #BlackGirlMagic took a dive into her family history on Finding Your Roots with the show’s host, Henry Louis Gates Jr. In the dive into the past, DuVernay discovered that among her ancestors were white French slave owners who fled the revolt…
-
Why We Need More Women of Color Running Their Own Businesses Under a Trump Presidency
Let’s face it: Half the country has been in a funk since Nov. 9. Not only did Donald Trump become president, but he went about shoring up white supremacy as swiftly as possible. Under his leadership, hate groups have grown and protections for marginalized people have been eagerly dismantled by the administration. And people of…
-
Watch: Segregated Schools, Then and Now
The Little Rock Nine made history 60 years ago when they became the first black students to enroll in an all-white high school in Little Rock, Ark. The black teenagers stood outside Central High School for three weeks, where they faced opposition from an angry mob of protesters, fellow classmates and state officials. In fact,…
-
Ava DuVernay and Victoria Mahoney to Adapt Octavia E. Butler’s Dawn for Television
If you’ve been waiting for Octavia E. Butler’s sci-fi to make it to television, Ava DuVernay and Victoria Mahoney have teamed up to bring Butler’s Dawn to television sets across the country. Dawn tells the story of a black woman working side by side with aliens to revive the human race 250 years after a…
-
10 Reasons You Absolutely Should Be Watching Queen Sugar Right Now (and When It Comes Back)
Queen Sugar, the Ava DuVernay-helmed television show on Auntie O’s OWN and based on the book by Natalie Baszile, is kicking ass and taking names right now. It’s easily one of the most compelling shows on television, and probably the only justification for why I see Farmers Only commercials on black television networks. I won’t…
-
#GimmeSugar: OWN Renews Queen Sugar for Season 3
Last month, Oprah Winfrey told a small group of women attending a Queen Sugar event in Los Angeles that the show isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. And of course, Winfrey kept her word: OWN has renewed the spectacular series for a third season. Queen Sugar, the series executive-produced by Ava DuVernay and based on the…
-
‘The Universe Is Wide Open’: Ava DuVernay’s Wrinkle in Time Trailer Is Pure Black-Girl Delight
Around here in Nerdlandia (them more than me), we love comic books, Marvel reboots and some other weird shit. I myself am more into classic sci-fi and fantasy on the geekdom spectrum: Harry Potter. Lord of the Rings. Star Wars. So when I saw the trailer for Disney’s big-screen adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s science fantasy…
-
Ava DuVernay Is Making a Miniseries on the Central Park Five for Netflix
Ava DuVernay has agreed to write and direct a five-part miniseries with Netflix about the infamous case of five young men who were wrongly accused and convicted of a gruesome rape in New York City’s Central Park in 1989, according to the Hollywood Reporter. This is DuVernay’s second project with Netflix, after 2016’s Oscar-nominated documentary…