Like many celebrities, Beyonce has weighed in on the current protests and the death of George Floyd. She shared a video message a few days ago, and last night, she offered another post. Sharing a photo of protestors flooding the streets in Minneapolis, Beyonce wrote, “The world came together for George Floyd. We know there is a long road ahead. Let’s remain aligned and focused in our call for real justice.”

This post comes a few days after a video from Beyonce in which she speaks about the situation and makes similar points about justice, saying, “We need justice for George Floyd. We all witnessed his murder in broad daylight. We’re broken and we’re disgusted. We cannot normalize this pain. I’m not only speaking to people of color. If you’re white, black, brown, or anything in between, I’m sure you feel hopeless about the racism going on in America right now. No more senseless killings of human beings. No more seeing people of color as less than human. We can no longer look away. […] Yes, someone’s been charged, but justice is far from being achieved.”

Meanwhile, her husband Jay-Z has also made his voice heard in recent days: He has spoken with the governor of Minneapolis, and he honored Floyd with ads in newspapers across the country.

The Rock will not stay silent during the protests following George Floyd‘s senseless death at the hand of law enforcement, and oh boy, is he feeling impassioned. In a process that’s more measured but as effective as the F-bomb dropping Seth Rogen, The Rock is going straight to the top with his appeal to recognize how Black Live Matter. On his social media pages, he posted an emphatic video, in which he never actually names President Trump, but he doesn’t have to say his name. It’s more than self-evident.

“Where are you? Where is our leader?” The Rock implores. “Where is our leader at this time when our country is down on its knees, begging, pleading, hurt, angry, frustrated, in pain with its arms out, just wanting to be heard? Where is our compassionate leader who’s going to step up to our country, who’s down on its knees, and extend a hand and say, ‘You stand up, stand up with me because I got you. I hear you, I’m listening to you. And you have my word that I’m going to do everything in my power, until my dying day, my last breath, to do everything I can to create the change that is needed, to normalize equality because Black Lives Matter.”

He continues while breaking down the unquestionable need for leadership’s solidarity with the Black Lives Matter cause: “Where are you?… Of course, all lives matter, but in this moment right now, this defining, pivotal, explosive moment where our country is down on its knees… we must say the words: Black Lives Matter.”

Watch the video, in which The Rock lauds the change that’s already begun, while he also acknowledges the long road to come.

Artists have been active on social media to show their support for the current protests. However, Summer Walker now claims that she has received some push-back about some of her posts from her record label.

Walker wrote in an Instagram Story:

“you can talk about your p*ssy and post your ass, talk about buying worthless jewelry instead of businesses and property, flex money, and disrespect your women. AND NONE OF THAT IS INSENSITIVE. but trying to warn people that DEEP STATE IS FINESSING YOU ALL AND TRYING TO TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS, IS TOO SENSITIVE. Black, White, Hispanic, Chinese, Indian THE DEEP STATE IS FINESSING US ALL. but my label just told me that this information is too sensitive, but I NEVER got a call about clapping my ass in panties is to sensitive. Surprise ? No. Disappointed ? Yes. And ima leave it at that cause I don’t wanna disrespect nobody.”

She then shared a series of posts about which she was supposedly contacted. One reads, “You protested! now regroup, strategize, come together, make a goal, figure out how to execute it. Example try to get all 4 of the men into custody, or try to get the killers bond comepletly removed. But I guess I just need to stfu cause I’m getting in the way of someone’s chance to get a rolex. take some f*cking responsibility. There’s protesting for a cause and then there’s just doing wild sh*t for personal gain. Stay focused.”

Check out Walker’s posts below.

According to IndieWire‘s annual examination of the movie industry, “White men still account for over 80 percent of film directors, even though they make up only a third of the U.S. population.” That explains how Green Book won Best Picture, and why Hollywood has had a “bad movie problem” for years — think of all the diverse stories that are being left untold. The odds are stacked against any non-white male getting a film financed and distributed, but it’s especially tough for black LGBTQ+ filmmakers. With the Black Lives Matter global network expanding every day and June being Pride Month, now’s an excellent time to watch these five movies from black LGBTQ+ directors.

Mississippi Damned (2009)

Run Time: 120 min | IMDb: 7.4/10

“I am my own worst critic. But this is the first time I was able to sit down and not to nitpick at everything,” director Tina Mabry told GLAAD about Mississippi Damned in 2010. She was right to not be hard on herself: Mississippi Damned is a difficult, but rewarding watch about a black family living in small-town Mississippi, with a focus on a closeted lesbian, a high school basketball star, and a burgeoning pianist in 1986, and their grown-up selves in 1998 as they attempt to either confront or give in to cycles of neglect and abuse.

The exquisitely-shot drama (which, fair notice, depicts rape and domestic abuse) was honored with multiple accolades, including an audience award at the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the American Black Film Festival was prophetic when they gave Best Actor to one of the ensemble film’s stars: Tessa Thompson, who would go on to play the first LGBTQ superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She had a remarkable presence even then.

Pariah (2011)

Run Time: 86 min | IMDb: 7.2/10

“I am not broken, I am free.”

Six years before she was nominated for an Oscar, Dee Rees made her best movie. Pariah is a self-autobiographical film that follows Alike (played by Adepero Oduye), a 17-year-old African-American girl growing up in Brooklyn “who knows that she loves women; that’s not the question,” as the Mudbound director said. “The question is how to be.” She’s torn between identities: she dresses butch at the club, where she’s surrounded by other empowered black women, but changes into “girl-y” clothes around her parents. The performances are exquisite; the script, sometimes funny, always authentic; the cinematography from Oscar nominee Bradford Young, stunning.

If you only have time for one movie on this list, make it Pariah.

D.E.B.S. (2004)

Run Time: 91 min | IMDb: 5.3/10

There’s often an expectation that queer and female filmmakers have to make Works That Matter, but white males shouldn’t have a monopoly on nonsense; look at D.E.B.S. Based on director Angela Robinson’s short film of the same name, the action-comedy is about four high schoolers who become super-spies after being recruited by the government through a test concealed in the SAT; one character’s name is “Lucy Diamond,” there’s talk of a plot to “sink” Australia, and a prominent scene includes a sing-along to Erasure’s timeless ’80s jam “A Little Respect.” It’s very silly and very fun, a winking satire of spy films (“the perfect lesbian spy movie that puts lesbianing first and spying second,” as an excellent Letterboxd review puts it) the way Josie and the Pussycats skewers the music industry.

D.E.B.S. has built a cult following over the years, but it was a dud at the time, only making $97,446 at the box office (on a $3.5 million budget). The entertainment industry has an abhorrent history of not giving female filmmakers, especially queer female filmmakers, multiple chances if they have a supposed “bomb” in their filmography, unlike male directors who are allowed to plop out turd after turd. Robinson would make Disney’s Herbie: Fully Loaded the next year, becoming only the third black woman ever to direct a feature-length film for a major studio, but it would take another 12 years before her next feature, 2017’s quietly powerful Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. She became an in-demand television director in that time, but hopefully it’s not another 12 years before her next movie. The people (me) demand a D.E.B.S. sequel.

The Watermelon Woman (1996)

Run Time: 90 min | IMDb: 6.7/10

The Watermelon Woman is not only historically significant, as it’s the first feature film directed by an out black lesbian; it’s also really good. (History and quality do not always go hand-in-hand — there’s a reason you probably can’t name the “first photorealistic computer-animated feature film.”) Directed by Cheryl Dunye, who also stars and wrote the incisive screenplay, The Watermelon Woman is a “black lesbian masterpiece” about a video store employee who wants to make a documentary about Faye Richards, the titular “watermelon woman,” a 1930s actress who was often cast in the “mammy” role.

The setting and wardrobe couldn’t be more ’90s, but The Watermelon Woman is a timeless “piece of art that allows us to think about who has access to representation, who has access to archives, and why women, people of color, and queer people have not had access to these powerful instruments,” producer Alexandra Juhasz told IndieWire.

Punks (2000)

Run Time: 101 min | IMDb: 7.1/10

Like so many film festival hits before it, Punks is almost impossible to find on the internet. But if you’re lucky enough to live near an indie theater that hosts a screening, like Brooklyn’s Nitehawk Cinema last year, do yourself a favor and go. I somehow saw the romantic-comedy, directed by Patrik-Ian Polk and produced by Babyface, in college, and while the details are fuzzy, I remember having a tremendous time. It’s the “gay male counterpart to Waiting to Exhale“ or “Sex and the City with black, gay men,” depending on which comparison you want to go with, although both should sound intriguing.

“It was a gay, black film, and we’re talking about the year 2000. I mean, you know how kind of it’s still kind of taboo in certain things in pop culture. But back then, it was a different time, so no major distributors made offers on the film,” Polk told NPR about Punks in 2019. It finally found a small distributor, but they couldn’t afford the rights to the Sister Sledge songs in the movie, “and then people forget, and then you just move on and do other things,” Polk added. People did move on, but they didn’t forget Punks.

In times of civil unrest, certain thematically relevant songs that are appropriate for the moment tend to get more plays. One of those that immediately comes to mind is NWA’s classic “F*ck The Police,” and naturally, it has seen a significant jump in listens following the death of George Floyd.

Citing figures from Alpha Data, Rolling Stone notes that from May 27 to June 1, “F*ck Tha Police” experienced a 272-percent increase in on-demand audio streams compared to the five-day period before Floyd’s death. The song did particularly well this past Sunday and Monday, racking up 765,000 streams during those days, which is about five times the amount of streams on those days before the protests began.

Meanwhile, Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” has also picked up steam over the past month or so, thanks to TikTok posts about the death of Ahmaud Arbery. Also from May 27 to June 1, “This Is America” had a 149-percent jump in streams.

Other songs that experienced increased streaming activity included Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” (up by 89 percent), Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” (71 percent), D’Angelo and the Vanguard’s “The Charade” (122 percent), Killer Mike’s “Don’t Die” (542 percent), Beyoncé’s “Freedom” (70 percent), James Brown’s “Say It Loud — I’m Black And I’m Proud” (455 percent), and Nina Simone’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” (34 percent).

In a 2016 interview, Ice Cube was asked if he believed things were getting better in terms of police brutality and racial equality, and he responded, “No. The problem is that they’re just the same. People don’t change their stripes. That’s just what it is. It ain’t changed.” He also said, “As a Black person, it’s always seemed like it’s a war on us. It’s just terrible. They wonder what I’ve got to complain about at this point in my life. I’ll tell you: People are only nice to me because they know who I am and they like my work. It shouldn’t have to be like that to get people to respect you.”

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Did Woody Harrelson’s father, Charles Harrelson, really assassinate a federal judge, a crime for which he was convicted and sentences to life in prison? Or was he framed for it? How could Charles Harrelson — a supposed mafia hitman who was so broke he accepted a pittance to murder a man — afford Percy Foreman, one of the most celebrated criminal defense attorneys of his era, and the guy Jack Ruby asked to defend him? Was Charles Harrelson involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy? What does Woody Harrelson think about his father? Has Woody tried to keep a lid on his father’s conviction to protect his career?

None of these questions are particularly novel, and the fact that Woody Harrelson’s father was a hitman is not exactly a big Hollywood secret (it’s been written about here before). What’s new, however, is that someone is actually trying to explore these questions. He’s a journalist by the name of Jason Cavanagh, and he hosts a new Spotify podcast, Son of a Hitman, which does a deep dive into the crimes of Charles Harrelson. In doing so, he talks to Charles’ other two sons, as well as the family members of the Senior Harrelson’s victims.

It is a thorough, in-depth investigation of Charles Harrelson, so much so that Brett Harrelson — the son of Charles and brother of Woody — ends up learning a lot about his own father through Cavanagh’s investigation. One wonders, however, if Woody would have welcomed the investigation.

“Woody Harrelson doesn’t want it, and he has a lot of power in Hollywood, but I knew that it would eventually come out,” says the daughter of Jamiel Chagra in episode five of Son of a Hitman. Chagra was one of the biggest drug traffickers in the country back in the 1970s, a man who purportedly paid Charles Harrelson to assassinate United States District Judge John H. Wood Jr. The account of Chagra is an insane, multilayered story in and of itself, and that, too, is explored in Son of a Hitman, which will also touch upon the most insane conspiracy surrounding Charles Harrelson: Was he involved in the murder of JFK?

It sounds farfetched, and it is, but Cavanaugh follows that trail, anyway, to see if there is a trail that connects Charles Harrelson to JFK. Through five episodes, so far, there are a few breadcrumbs, and fans of Woody Harrelson, true crime, or podcasts would be served well to tune into Son of a Hitman to see if Cavanagh can connect the dots to JFK or definitively discover whether Harrelson was framed for the murder of a federal judge.

(Via Son of a Hitman podcast)

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Athletes from across the sports world have spoken out over the past week about racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Some have participated in or organized protests nationwide, while others have used their platforms to continue to put the message that Black Lives Matter in front of the public in an inescapable manner to continue to shine a light on the police’s treatment of the black community.

While many have spoken eloquently and powerfully on the subject, from Stephen Jackson to Malcolm Brogdon, others have received backlash for their commentary on the situation and protests. Drew Brees found himself getting rightfully torched by teammates and the sports world as a whole on Wednesday after he once again misconstrued the protests of police brutality by Colin Kaepernick and others during the national anthem prior to NFL games in recent years as “disrespecting the flag,” earning him backlash from teammates like Michael Thomas and Malcolm Jenkins, a fellow star QB in Aaron Rodgers, and even LeBron James.

Late on Wednesday night, Florida State’s new head coach Mike Norvell found himself in hot water with his new team before ever really stepping foot in the Seminoles locker room, as he told The Athletic’s Tashan Reed that he “went back and forth individually with every player this weekend” about the protests and discrimination. Shortly after Reed posted that quote, All-American defensive tackle Marvin Wilson issued a statement on behalf of the FSU players, saying it was a lie, they got a “generated text” from Norvell, and there was not dialogue between the two sides.

I do not know what Norvell’s plan was in giving this quote beyond trying to win some PR points for being a good and caring players coach, but you can’t actually earn those points without putting the actual work in behind the scenes. Wilson says players are “outraged” by Norvell’s public statement since such conversations never really took place and will no longer be reporting to workouts until further notice.

It is really hard to lose the locker room before you’re even allowed to share the locker room together with your team, but Norvell has managed to do it. He tried to win on the recruiting trail with a nice quote about caring about his players and their journey and fight against discrimination and hate, but failed to, you know, actually care and talk with his players in the manner he suggests he did and now has some serious work to do to earn the trust of players he has earned no goodwill with.