While the first Thor never achieved the bombastic reception that audiences gave Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, for the most part, it’s still viewed as a fun and welcomed entry from director Kenneth Branagh during the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Unfortunately, the first sequel, Thor: The Dark World, is considered one of the low points in the MCU, and in a new interview, Branagh has opened up about his decision to not direct the sequel.

While promoting his Disney+ movie, Artemis Fowl, Branagh revealed that there was an intense amount of pressure regarding the casting of Thor and Loki in the first film. Unbeknownst to audiences, Branagh knew ahead of time that the relationship between the two brothers would spill over into The Avengers, and if they didn’t get the casting just right and nail the Shakespearean-like drama between the God of Thunder and his trickster sibling, the whole MCU could collapse on itself. Obviously, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston nailed their respective roles, but there was a considerable amount of stress over banking on the two actors, who were nowhere close to the household names they are now. Via Collider:

“I’ll never forget the moment that we cast those two boys [Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston]. It was like a sort of meditation or a sort of incantation… Kevin Feige must’ve walked around this long oval table a hundred times on that Saturday morning as I kept sort of saying, ‘I think we should call them.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yeah, I think we should call them.’… and I knew how profoundly serious that decision was. Kevin said, ‘We’ll never make a more important decision in this company than what’s happening in this room, Saturday morning at 10:30, when you pick up the phone to Chris Hemsworth and then Tom Hiddleston. It’s either going to work or it’s not. Good luck.’”

Despite having his own ideas for a Thor trilogy, the high-stakes decision-making on the first film wore Branagh down, and he needed to “recharge on something else.” While Taiki Waititi is now in-charge of the franchise after rejuvenating the character in Thor: Ragnarok, Branagh is definitely open to the idea of coming back and directing a new character for the MCU.

(Via Collider)

Crossing Swords (Hulu) — Over the weekend, the creators of Robot Chicken gave us this animated gem starring Nicholas Hoult as a good-natured peasant who gets promoted to squire for the royal court and quickly learns the monarchy is a lot hornier and more incompetent than he ever imagined. It leans into the raunch a bit too much to deliver any kind of meaningful comedy, but hey, we’re allowed to like purely ridiculous stuff, right?

Da 5 Bloods (Netflix) — Spike Lee’s latest streaming joint also hit Netflix last week and since next to nothing is on regular TV right now, it’s a good time to check this movie out if you haven’t already. Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman plays a Black Vietnam war vet and squad leader. Flash forward to the present, and his team’s returned to find the buried gold they left behind. The bigger struggle will be coming to terms with the price of defending their country and receiving no gratitude in return.

The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons – Ever! (ABC, 8:00 p.m.) — The show looks back at Kaitlyn Bristowe’s controversial season that followed a shocking Bachelor finale.

The Titan Games (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) — Victor Cruz and stunt woman Jessie Graff serve as tonight’s pro Titans who will face off against the West Division champion on Mt. Olympus.

Roswell, New Mexico (CW, 9:00 p.m.) — Liz and Isobel are forced to make a devastating choice when Max’s life is put in danger thanks to a threat at CrashCon. Elsewhere, Michael is caught in the middle of a conflict between Jesse and Alex, Maria’s life hangs in the balance, and Kyle faces an ethical dilemma.

Songland (NBC, 10:00 p.m.) — Multiplatinum, eight-time Grammy and American Music Award-winning R&B icon, Usher, comes to “Songland” to hear unknown songwriters pitch their original material.

Many people are still experiencing the majority of their human interactions on Zoom as the COVID-19 pandemic rages worldwide, so it’s no surprise that the feeling of talking to someone was inevitably monetized for celebrity gain.

Cameo has found interesting ways to stay in the news as many people remain relatively trapped in their homes and seek human connection. Remember when Mark McGrath breaking a couple up during a Cameo went viral, a video that turned out to be a fairly predictable hoax? Well, now the company has upped the ante while adding Zoom calls to the equation. That’s right, for a somewhat unreasonable rate you can now have private talks with celebrities, which I’m sure won’t be awkward even a little bit because you’re just so dang personable.

Cameo’s public relations team listed some of the notable celebrity options like Jeremy Piven, Gilbert Gottfried, Lance Bass, Vicki Gunvalson, Brett Favre, Drake Bell, and Dr. Drew, which are just a few of the more than 50 people now available for Zoom calls. And as the AV Club noted, Piven is available for a 10-minute group call if you have a cool $15,000 at your disposal and need to get yelled at by the dude from Entourage.

It sounds miserable enough that we can’t really blame Jeremy Piven, the mercury-filled Entourage actor, for valuing that 10 minutes at an alarming rate of $15,000. Lance Bass is only charging $1,250, for fuck’s sake. Sean Astin’s only $600. And while $5,000 still seems high for Brett Favre, it’s not $15,000. Thinking it might be a typo, we reached out to Cameo and were told that, yes, that is absolutely Piven’s rate.

Here’s the list of Zoom-available celebrities if you’re looking for a bit of face time with Ari or, say, Tony Hawk. Just maybe think ahead and buy a flip phone Piven can smash against a wall during your call. Really get your money’s worth if you’re gonna go for it.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

In a recent interview, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was asked why it’s so difficult to prosecute cases against police officers.

“Just think about all the cop shows you may have watched in your life,” he replied. “We’re just inundated with this cultural message that these people will do the right thing.”

While two of those shows, “Cops” and “Live PD,” have just been canceled, Americans have long been awash in a sea of police dramas. In shows like “Hill Street Blues,” “Gangbusters,” “The Untouchables,” “Dragnet,” “NYPD Blue” and “Law and Order,” audiences view the world from the perspective of law enforcement, in which alternately heroic and beleaguered police fight a series of wars on crime. These shows – and countless others – mythologize the police, ensuring that their point of view has dominated popular culture.

This didn’t happen by accident.

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As a media historian, I’ve studied how, beginning in the 1930s, law enforcement agencies worked closely with media producers in order to rehabilitate their image. Many of the shows proved to be hits with viewers, and this symbiotic relationship spawned numerous collaborations that would go on to create a one-sided view of law and order, with the voices of the policed going unheard.

The FBI’s PR machine

For FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, police served a primary role: to protect a “vigorous, intelligent, old-fashioned Americanism” that was threatened by what he saw as unreasonable demands for civil rights and liberties.

Hoover wanted his agents to reflect his vision of “Americanism,” so he hired agents with an eye toward whether they fit the mold of what he deemed a “good physical specimen“: white, Christian and tall. They couldn’t suffer from “physical defects” like baldness and impaired vision, nor could they have “foreign” accents.

In the 1930s, Hoover also established a public relations arm within the agency called the Crime Records Division. At the time, the image of the police was sorely in need of rehabilitation, thanks to high-profile federal crime commissions that documented widespread violence, suppression and corruption within police departments.

Hoover realized that broadcast media could serve as a perfect vehicle to disseminate his conception of law enforcement and repair the police’s standing with the public.

The Crime Records Division cultivated relationships with “friendly” media owners, producers and journalists who would reliably endorse the FBI’s views. In 1935, the FBI partnered with Warner Brothers on the film “‘G’ Men.” A “G-Men” radio series followed, made in collaboration with producer Phillips H. Lord and reviewed by J. Edgar Hoover,” who “checked every statement” and made “valuable suggestions,” according to the series’ credits.

A year later, the FBI worked with Lord again on the radio series “Gang Busters,” whose gunshot-filled opening credits boasted of the show’s “cooperation with police and federal law enforcement departments throughout the United States” its status as “the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories.”

Although Hoover and Lord notoriously clashed over the details – Hoover wanted to emphasize the science of policing and the professionalism of law enforcement, while Lord wanted more drama – the focus on the police as protagonists went largely unquestioned.

The FBI’s collaborations continued into the 1970s, with the long-running series “This is Your FBI” (1945-1953) and “The FBI,” (1965-1974). Like “G-Men” and “Gang Busters,” these programs were based on solved police cases and made the most of their ripped-from-the-headlines realism.

Other writers and producers pursued similar collaborations with law enforcement. The iconic series “Dragnet,” for example, was written with the approval of Los Angeles police chief William H. Parker, who notoriously headed the LAPD during the 1965 Watts riots.

images.theconversation.com

Reactionary retaliation

The FBI didn’t just collaborate on media production. My research on the television blacklist – a smear campaign to silence anti-racist progressives in the media industry – reveals how the agency routinely retaliated against its critics.

When journalist John Crosby criticized the FBI during a 1952 television broadcast, Hoover scrawled a note on the report of the incident: “This is an outrageous allegation. We ought to nail this. What do our files show on Crosby?”

Shortly afterwards, Crosby was denounced in American Legion Magazine as someone who supported supposedly communist performers and artists.

When lawyer and government official Max Lowenthal was completing a book critical of the FBI in 1950, the Bureau wiretapped his phone and planted stories so disparaging that few copies of the book sold, ending Lowenthal’s government career. The Bureau even succeeded in getting at least one writer fired from “This is Your FBI” merely because it believed his wife was not a sufficiently “loyal American citizen.” Worse was always visited on black performers, journalists and activists, who were subject to far more intense spying, surveillance and police abuse.

Law enforcement’s efforts to control its image through production and repression helped create police dramas that seldom questioned their built-in bias. Meanwhile, the dearth of diversity in writers’ rooms reinforced this formula.

Of course, some notable exceptions dulled the police drama’s sheen, including David Simon’s “The Wire” and “The Corner,” and Ava DuVernay’s recent miniseries “When They See Us.” These dramas upend the traditional police point-of-view, asking viewers to see the police through the eyes of those most often policed and punished.

Time’s up for the police drama?

Periodically, Americans have been made aware of the one-sidedness of these media depictions of police conduct. In 1968, for example, the Kerner Commission explored the causes of uprisings in black communities. Its report noted that, within these communities, there was longstanding awareness that “the press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men’s eyes and white perspective.”

Changing that perspective requires more than recognizing the role police dramas have played as propaganda for law enforcement. It means reckoning with the legacy of stories that gloss over police misconduct and violence, which disproportionately affect people of color.

“We want to see more,” Rashad Robinson, the executive director of the civil rights advocacy organization Color of Change, told The New York Times after the cancellation of “Cops.” “These cop reality shows that glorify police but will never show the deep level of police violence are not reality, they are P.R. arms for law enforcement. Law enforcement doesn’t need P.R. They need accountability.”

Carol A. Stabile is a professor at the University of Oregon

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a historic ruling that protects LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination. In the 6-3 ruling, two conservative-leaning justices, Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts, joined the four liberal-leaning judges in the decision. Gorsuch himself wrote the Supreme Court opinion.

The courts are supposed to be objective. so labeling justices with ideological labels such as “conservative” and “liberal” always feels a bit reductive. But we live in a highly partisan era, and it would be naive to ignore the politicized underpinnings of judicial appointments. Especially in high-profile cases like this one, a 5-4 split along conservative/liberal lines wouldn’t have been surprising.

So how did these two conservative judges end up ruling in favor of the LGBTQ+ community, which is generally viewed as a liberal stance?

In a nutshell, they didn’t. Not explicitly anyway.

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The basis of the ruling isn’t actually about legal protection based on sexual orientation or gender identity itself. In the opinion, Gorsuch explains that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex, [and] national origin.” What the court determined was that the “sex” part of the law is what LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination cases really boils down to.

“If the employer intentionally relies in part on an individual employee’s sex when deciding to discharge the employee—put differently, if changing the employee’s sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer—a statutory violation has occurred,” Gorsuch wrote in the 27-page opinion.

The entire opinion includes specific precedents and arguments against dissents issued by the other conservative justices, but the gist of the ruling is summed up in these two paragraphs:

“An individual’s homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions. That’s because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex. Consider, for example, an employer with two employees, both of whom are attracted to men. The two individuals are, to the employer’s mind, materially identical in all respects, except that one is a man and the other a woman. If the employer fires the male employee for no reason other than the fact he is attracted to men, the employer discriminates against him for traits or actions it tolerates in his female colleague. Put differently, the employer intentionally singles out an employee to fire based in part on the employee’s sex, and the affected employee’s sex is a but-for cause of his discharge. Or take an employer who fires a transgender person who was identified as a male at birth but who now identifies as a female. If the employer retains an otherwise identical employee who was identified as female at birth, the employer intentionally penalizes a person identified as male at birth for traits or actions that it tolerates in an employee identified as female at birth. Again, the individual employee’s sex plays an unmistakable and impermissible role in the discharge decision.

That distinguishes these cases from countless others where Title VII has nothing to say. Take an employer who fires a female employee for tardiness or incompetence or simply supporting the wrong sports team. Assuming the employer would not have tolerated the same trait in a man, Title VII stands silent. But unlike any of these other traits or actions, homosexuality and transgender status are inextricably bound up with sex. Not because homosexuality or transgender status are related to sex in some vague sense or because discrimination on these bases has some disparate impact on one sex or another, but because to discriminate on these grounds requires an employer to intentionally treat individual employees differently because of their sex.”

What’s interesting about basing the ruling on sex discrimination—aside from the fact that it makes perfect sense within the letter of the law—is that it serves as a loophole of sorts, through which these conservative justices are able to rule in favor of LGBTQ+ protection under the law without explicitly defending anyone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. In other words, they don’t have to voice support for the LGBTQ+ community anywhere in this opinion—the law regarding sex discrimination covers it.

Gorsuch summed up the opinion as such:

“Ours is a society of written laws. Judges are not free to overlook plain statutory commands on the strength of nothing more than suppositions about intentions or guesswork about expectations. In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee. We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”

The court has concluded that “the law,” as written, protects LGBTQ+ folks from discrimination because LGBTQ+ discrimination is inseparable from sex discrimination.

What’s striking about this ruling is that it means these protections have already been in place for the past 56 years. In some ways, that makes the ruling more powerful than if new legislation had been passed adding specific language regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. On one hand, it sort of allows the court to skirt around the question of specific protections for LGBTQ+ people. On the other hand, it essentially reaches an arm around the LGBTQ+ community and sweeps them into the broad protections already guaranteed to everyone else.

With the argument being made by a conservative justice and signed off by another, that’s a huge, historic statement, and a big win for LGBTQ+ workers.

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It’s been nearly sixteen years since The Killers shared their iconic debut album Hot Fuss, and the band continues to record music. Though their forthcoming album is on pause due to the pandemic, The Killers are keeping their fans excited through the singles “Caution” and “Fire In Bone.” Now, the band comes together for a rendition of their album’s lead single on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Announcing The Killers, Ellen said their performance of “Caution” marks an exciting anniversary. “Almost eight years ago our next guest made their daytime television debut on my show,” she said. The clip cuts to The Killers together in a studio. Backed by a partial band, vocalist Brandon Flowers belts out the songs’ lyrics while on piano. “I’m throwing caution / What’s it gonna be? / Tonight the winds of change are blowing wild and free,” Flowers sings.

Ahead of their set on Ellen, The Killers announced they would be delaying their Imploding The Mirage release due to the pandemic. After postponing their tour, Flowers described the importance of their live shows in promoting their album: “We want it to be clean, but still have an impact. It’s more about the content and letting the songs do the talking. We’ve got a big band with nine of us on stage. It’s a big sound and it helps build a community. We’ve never felt so close to the audience. Why? It’s beyond me. It starts with the songs and our approach to the way that we present them. I’m not faking it. I believe in these songs and the power of the performance.”

Watch The Killers perform “Caution” on The Ellen DeGeneres Showabove.

Fox News has been the butt of several jokes over the weekend after the conservative news channel reported a quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail as the actual words of a protester inside the Seattle “Capital Hill Autonomous Zone” (also known as “CHAZ”).

After finding the quote on Reddit, the network’s first mistake, The Story host Martha MacCallum was completely oblivious to the fact that she was reading a movie quote, and instead, tried to paint the Monty Python joke as the actual thoughts of protesters turning against hip-hop artist Raz Simone who lead the effort to form CHAZ. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

In her report, MacCallum pointed to a since deleted post on Reddit questioning Raz’s appointment, which she used as evidence of group turmoil. The post was a joke which quoted classic lines from 1975’s Holy Grail, reading: “I thought we had an anonymous collective. An anarcho-syndicalist commune at the least, we should take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.”

The Fox faux-pas has been getting brutally mocked on social media, and now Monty Python member John Cleese is getting in on the act. In a new tweet posted Monday morning, the British comedian trolled Fox News for its lack of fact-checking and journalistic standards. “BREAKING: No one @FoxNews has ever seen @montypython & The Holy Grail. #runit #goodjournalism #factchecking,” Cleese wrote.

You can see Cleese’s tweet along with a video of Fox very seriously reporting on the Monty Python joke below:

(Via The Hollywood Reporter, John Cleese on Twitter)

The WNBA has officially announced its plans to have a shortened, 22-game regular season followed by a traditional playoff format starting in late July at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. The league was set to have a 36-game regular season starting May 15, but WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was forced to suspend operations in early April due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

As ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel reported on June 4, the league’s first proposal included paying players just 60% of their normal salaries in a shortened season, but following discussions with the players’ union, the league will now pay players 100% of their salaries and provide full health benefits. IMG Academy is set to be the league’s single site for training camp, games and housing, according to the press release.

“We are finalizing a season start plan to build on the tremendous momentum generated in the league during the offseason and have used the guiding principles of health and safety of players and essential staff to establish necessary and extensive protocols,” Engelbert said in the release. “We will continue to consult with medical experts and public health officials as well as players, team owners and other stakeholders as we move forward with our execution plan. And, despite the disruption caused by the global pandemic to our 2020 season, the WNBA and its Board of Governors believe strongly in supporting and valuing the elite women athletes who play in the WNBA and therefore, players will receive their full pay and benefits during the 2020 season.”

The proposed season would take place without fans, as the league’s top priority is the health and safety of its players and staff. No details regarding testing protocol were laid out in the release, and Engelbert said that the league will continue to consult medical professionals and players as it finalizes its plans.

Additionally, several WNBA players have attended nationwide protests against racism and police violence in recent weeks, and have publicly voiced their support in this important time for social change. In the press release, the league recognized the players’ actions and said it aims to back them, writing that “the WNBA 2020 season will include a devoted platform led by the players that will aim to support and strengthen both the league and teams’ reach and impact on social justice matters.”

“We have always been at the forefront of initiatives with strong support of #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, the LGBTQ+ community, gun control, voting rights, #MeToo, mental health and the list goes on. This is not only necessary from a humanitarian perspective, but it may be one of the biggest opportunities that this league has and will ever have,” said WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike, who plays for the Los Angeles Sparks.

Oklahoma State was set to have some serious talent returning on their 2020 squad, pending, of course, the return of college football amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Star running back Chuba Hubbard, fresh off a 2,094 yard season on the ground, returns to Stillwater as one of the best players in the country, and linebacker Amen Ogbongbemiga was due back for a senior year fresh off a 100 tackle (15.5 for loss) season on the opposite side of the ball. Head coach Mike Gundy has found a way to push both away from the program, however, thanks to his inability to read the room and constant support of the aggressively conservative, pro-Trump (to the point of publishing questionable at best and fake at worst stories) news outlet OAN.

Gundy wore an OAN shirt while fishing over the weekend and the continued support of the outlet — which has been vehemently opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement — led to Hubbard saying he won’t participate in “anything” for OSU until something changes, which was then supported by Ogbongbemiga.

Gundy has previously voiced his support for OAN, calling it “refreshing” a couple months back when speaking with the media.

There seems to be a movement happening within college football where star players are recognizing the power they have in these situations, most recently evidenced by Florida State players threatening not to participate in workouts after new coach Mike Norvell lied to a reporter about having individual conversations with all his players about the protests and BLM movement and Iowa players calling out their strength coach for racist comments. The results were the FSU program promising to do more in the community, particularly with the Black community in Tallahassee, and Iowa parting ways with the highest-paid strength coach in the country.

The question at Oklahoma State is what change is sufficient enough to get their star players back on board, as Gundy clearly knew what he was doing in procuring and wearing that shirt, then being photographed in it. Before anyone decides to tout Gundy’s first amendment right to wear whatever shirt he pleases, he absolutely can, but that doesn’t mean he’s shielded from any response from players who are understandably upset by his choice. One of the reasons college coaches often remain fairly quiet about their political beliefs, particularly if right-leaning, is because their job is to recruit players (many of whom are Black) and doing so would negatively impact that. Gundy has decided he’s not worried about that, and now must reap what he sowed. Oklahoma State must decide if he’s worth keeping around, despite all his success there, if players are now going to back away from the program because of his beliefs.