Newsletter Monday, February 19, 2018

[LaineyGossip.com - Calling all smuthounds!] Monday, February 19, 2018 [Intro for February 19, 2018]( [Letitia Wright attends the EE British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) held at Royal Albert Hall on February 18, 2018 in London, England](Dear Gossips, I was obsessed all weekend with checking the box office for Black Panther. As noted [last week](, the projections kept going up every day. And the numbers kept climbing every few hours this weekend and [breaking all kinds of records](. By Saturday morning they seemed certain the movie would get to $200 million. Yesterday Disney was saying $218 million (4 day) and this morning, I just checked, Black Panther’s Sunday box office is now the [second highest Sunday box office of all time](, behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens by only a million dollars, and some think that the 4 day total, given that it’s a long weekend in the US, will also come in as the second highest of all time. Right now they’re still calling it the fifth of all time but, again, as I said, these figures keep rising. It’s an extraordinary achievement… and Ryan Coogler is only 31 years old! Given those (still-changing) totals, I’m assuming many of you saw Black Panther this weekend? And maybe more than once? What were your favourite parts? I’m still daydreaming about when Okoye (Danai Gurira) speared that car and stomped up on the hood, her red dress billowing around her. When that happened, I felt like my soul left my body and floated up to heaven. And then, of course, there’s Shuri, played by Letitia Wright, the breakout star of a movie that’s already stacked with stars (and an Oscar nominee). Shuri, as Sarah wrote in her review of Black Panther [last week](, may very well be the one person in the MCU Tony Stark can’t (Iron)mansplain to without getting his ass handed back to him. So…which Black Panther character are you? Please. You know I love a quiz, but I especially love a character quiz. And I’ve done two so far. The BBC [has one]( and of course Buzzfeed has already [put out theirs](. I got Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) both times. Nakia is a spy. She knows her gossip. Here are Lupita and Letitia at the BAFTAs last night. To learn more about Letitia and Princess Shuri, check out Vanity Fair’s [new profile](. Ryan Coogler called Shuri the “love and the light” of the film. She really, really is. Because she is the possibility, the future. She also had most of the funniest lines in the movie. “Don’t scare me like that, coloniser.” !!!!!!!!! Yours in gossip, Lainey [Click here for the rest of the photos.]( Posted at 12:38 PM [Oh hi, Angelina]( [Angelina Jolie attends the EE British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) held at Royal Albert Hall on February 18, 2018 in London, England](Gossip doesn’t work without timing. And since the Brange-Aniston Triangle became one of the biggest stories of the modern Hollywood gossip era, the timing has always been… well… conveniently coincidental. Or conspiratorial. One would always show up when the other was in the news. Like clockwork. Last week it was Jennifer Aniston in the news after it was announced that she and Justin Theroux were separating. This weekend, [Angelina Jolie]( walked the red carpet at two events – she was honoured by the American Society of Cinematographers on Saturday night in Hollywood and last night she was at the BAFTAs with Loung Ung representing their film First They Killed My Father. Both of these appearances, of course, were scheduled well in advance. And certainly Angelina could not have known what would be going down in Jen’s life. So this is coincidence and not conspiracy. But it’s also evidence too that whoever the universe has assigned to supervise storylines is a clearly a gossip lover. And they love giving us sh-t to talk about. Angelina wore a champagne-coloured Elie Saab dress to the Cinematographers Awards and a black velvet Ralph & Russo to the BAFTAs. She looked like she was feeling herself on both nights. At the BAFTAs in particular, she seemed to really bring it, especially with the posing. You know what the universe could really do to blow our minds? Last week everyone was freaking out because [Jennifer Aniston]( and Brad Pitt were both single again and at the same time. Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie are also single again at the same time. What if, one day, they stepped out together, as friends, holding hands and giggling like Angelina’s doing here with Loung Ung? Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor became friends in the end. One night they ended up on the same boat together and decided to have dinner. They got drunk. Everything was forgiven. Is that at all possible in this case? [Click here for the rest of the photos.]( Posted at 8:55 PM [Jen & Justin’s “issues”]( [Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux](I’m curious about what this week’s US tabloids will look like. You’ll recall, when I wrote about Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux’s [breakup timeline last week](, announcing their separation on a Thursday gave the “gossip industry”, and all the gossip magazines, enough time to get it into their new issues, maybe even on the front covers, even though it’s a long weekend in America. Like I said, the rollout and the timing of the breakup confirmation seemed weird to me and still does. Especially since there seems to be a New York version of what happened and a Hollywood version. There’s been a lot of reporting so far about Justin Theroux’s New York “edginess”, which is as much of an eyeroll as Jen’s beachy ocean organic “laid back”-ness. So far, the major factor that has emerged about the breakup is that it was a push-pull between coasts. She wanted them to be based in LA and he didn’t want to leave New York. PEOPLE this morning published a new article about how Jen and Justin had “[issues even before tying the knot](”. This is hilarious to me because just a week ago, PEOPLE posted an article about [how great their married life was](, with a source telling the magazine that they “have figured out a life that works for them”. Now PEOPLE’s sources have evidently revised their assessments: The source close to the pair says that Aniston and Theroux each preferred different coasts, a major source of continued discord for the pair. “Ever since they became serious, the living issue often made them bicker. It was always hard for Jen to understand why Justin didn’t like, or at least could learn to like L.A., when she was in L.A.,” the source says. For a long time, the couple — who dated for more than four years before marrying in 2015 — accommodated each other, with Theroux spending more and more time on his own in New York City. “With Jen feeling so strongly about living in L.A. and disliking N.Y.C. so much, she wanted Justin to be happy and that’s why she agreed that he should spend so much time in N.Y.C.,” says the insider. Still the source adds that “one wonders why they got married in the first place” because “nothing really changed” after the pair tied the knot in a surprise backyard birthday party-turned-wedding ceremony on August 5, 2015, a few days before Theroux turned 44, followed by a honeymoon in Bora Bora with friends such as Courteney Cox, Jimmy Kimmel and Jason Bateman along for the trip. Getting married “never seemed that important” to them, says the source. “When they finally did start to plan it seriously, it was more like ‘Let’s have a great party with all of our friends and go on a fun trip.’ ” Still, “they had the same issues before they got married as caused them to split.” Well, sh-t. Now we have to go there. “One wonders why they even got married in the first place”? [Jen]( and [Justin]( were married August 2015. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were married in August 2014. If “one (is wondering) why they even got married in the first place”, is that one of the possible reasons we can hypothesise? These three have been playing the tit-for-tat game for almost 15 years. For a while there, Justin Theroux seemed down to play too. So when his “arty” and “edgy” New York friends are supposedly running to Page Six talking about how Hollywood just wasn’t his thing because he’s too New York for that sh-t, show them that photo of the two of them photographed in Santa Fe, New Mexico showing off their engagement ring, and ask them to point out where there’s a gun to his head forcing him to participate. Theroux and Jennifer Aniston are seen October 6, 2012 in Santa Fe, New Mexico He participated. And he showed up to participate. And he got a lot out of his participation. Go look at his IMDb and see how his career picked up after they started dating. And now, apparently, he’s changed his mind because he’s not about that Hollywood life? Sure. [TMZ]( says there’s no evidence of a marriage certificate and that, while it’s possible that Jen and Justin’s is confidential, it’s unlikely that they would have gotten one in LA County. So now there’s a conspiracy theory out there that they never made it legal. Which is why no divorce lawyers have been retained so far. One conspiracy theory leads to another. Like, if it wasn’t legal, was it even legit? For the record, I think it was legit. But was it amicable? [Click here for the rest of the photos.]( Posted at 8:20 PM [Smutty Social Media, February 19, 2018]( [Hugh Grant attends the EE British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) held at Royal Albert Hall on February 18, 2018 in London, England](Have you watched Fergie’s performance of The Star-Spangled Banner at the [NBA All-Star game yet](? It will take you through a range of emotions: discomfort, bewilderment, distress, amusement. But most of all, fontrum. Unbearable fontrum. Meanwhile back in the states... I leave for a couple of days and y’all lose your muthafucking mind!! Why did this happen? Not everyone supposed to do this y’all! You might as well should have ask me to sing. Wtf?! — Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) [February 19, 2018]( I think Dr. Dre’s daughter posted this to his account because she posted the same photo and caption on her own Instagram page. At 53, Dr. Dre is really no different than any father of a teenager – his social media is subject to approval of his children. (Side note: Do you think Dre’s daughters and Eminem’s daughters hang out?) [A post shared by Dr. Dre (@drdre)]( on Feb 18, 2018 at 5:56pm PST Elizabeth Hurley wished Hugh Grant luck at the BAFTAs. I find it interesting that she used a throwback to when they were a couple, instead of a more recent shot. But they are one of the few exes that I believe are close friends – no one could fake it for 18 years. (When they were dating, her friends called him [Grumpelstiltskin](. Ha!) [A post shared by Elizabeth Hurley (@elizabethhurley1)]( on Feb 18, 2018 at 10:55am PST My guiding light Wendi Deng had not posted on Instagram since the “Is Wendi Deng a spy?” story came out. But the Lunar New Year is a reason to celebrate. [A post shared by Wendi Murdoch (@wendimurdoch)]( on Feb 19, 2018 at 7:02am PST Do you think Babs and Richard Marx did an impromptu duet? [A post shared by Barbra Streisand (@barbrastreisand)]( on Feb 15, 2018 at 9:38am PST Apparently Katy and Orlando have been “flirty AF” on Instagram (you can see the evidence [here](. I don’t know if these exchanges warrant an “as f-ck.” It seems pretty lukewarm. [A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry)]( on Feb 14, 2018 at 8:39pm PST [A post shared by Orlando Bloom (@orlandobloom)]( on Feb 16, 2018 at 8:17am PST Do you follow Betches on Instagram, or read its Bachelor recaps? The “millennial-focused media brand” is working on an animated series at Comedy Central and Emma Roberts [is attached](. I’m not shaking my fist and yelling “get off my lawn” about this because men with popular Twitter accounts have been given TV deals, so why not a group of women with 6.1 million followers? [A post shared by Emma Roberts (@emmaroberts)]( on Feb 17, 2018 at 4:31am PST Is the “I heart mom” tattoo so old-school it’s become cool again? Like records and typewriters. [A post shared by Victoria Beckham (@victoriabeckham)]( on Feb 17, 2018 at 5:00pm PST [Click here for the rest of the photos.]( Posted at 7:00 PM [Show Your Work: The Work of Wakanda]( [Lupita Nyong'o and Danai Gurira at the South African premiere of Black Panther ](Black Panther is the biggest story in Hollywood coming out of the weekend. The numbers have already gone up from when I logged on this morning. We’ve now gone from $218 million domestically over the 4 day long weekend to an estimated $235 million, adjusted a couple of hours ago. So of course we’re talking about Black Panther this week on Show Your Work. And joining us for the discussion is our first ever guest on the podcast, Kathleen Newman-Bremang. Black Panther, of course, is Ryan Coogler’s vision. But Ryan Coogler also assembled a team – of women and people of colour, doing great work in bringing that vision to life. The entire Black Panther production team is a defiant rejection of that long-held Hollywood belief – and excuse – that qualified people of colour and women can’t be found to take on certain positions. And because of the success of Black Panther, more of opportunities can hopefully be created for a new class of creative talent who will be bringing their best practices and techniques to the set. One of those people is costume designer Ruth E Carter. Already there’s anticipation that Ruth could get an Oscar nomination next year for her work on the film. [The Cut]( interviewed Ruth recently about the research and the thought that went into dressing the characters and the setting the clothing style in the movie to the story. Why did Danai Gurira’s Okoye wear gold neckrings while the other Dora Milaje wore silver? What was the design inspiration behind Queen Ramonda’s (Angela Bassett) headpieces? What Ruth and her colleagues have done is made Black Panther a fashion statement. I’m obsessed with everything Shuri wore in the movie. I love Killmonger’s cape when he sits on the throne. Holy sh-t, T’Challa’s suit, with the scarf over one shoulder, at the end when he speaks at the UN. What’s cool, however, is also copied. And this is where we go next: how can we who are not of African heritage, who are not black, participate in this Black Panther moment and movement without claiming it and appropriating it? We’ve received many emails asking this very question and this is the discussion Kathleen, Duana, and I attempt to unpack. Here’s the Bustle article that Kathleen refers to, with insight from Ruth E Carter herself on how to “[appreciate the characters without culturally appropriating them](”. From there we move on to Glen Mazzara’s interview with Variety on “[creating real change in the TV industry](”. Glen is the former showrunner for The Walking Dead. But he was also, in a previous career, a hospital administrator. This, then, is a great article about management and leadership, not just in Hollywood but in all industries, at all levels, in every department with so much real-world application. And finally, have you ever gone to work sick? We all have right? Have you ever gone to work when work was being the lead anchor during the Olympics with …double pink eye? I almost forgot that that happened to Bob Costas four years ago. But we are now midway through the Olympics and Vulture has given us [the oral history]( of the time Bob Costas had double pink eye at the Olympics and, well, this article has everything – as Vulture says, a work story “to be remembered and celebrated”. Catch us weekly on [iTunes](, [Google Play]( and now [Spotify]( and hit us up on twitter at [@laineygossip]( and [@duanaelise]( to share your thoughts. [Click here for the rest of the photos.]( Posted at 6:21 PM [Blue & Beyoncé: courtside shades]( [Beyonce, Blue Ivy Carter, Tina Knowles and Richard Lawson attend the NBA All-Star Game 2018 at Staples Center on February 18, 2018 in Los Angeles, California](There were a lot of celebrities courtside at the NBA All-Star game last night. The celebrity who made the biggest entrance: Blue Ivy Carter, obviously. With her mother, Beyoncé. And Miss Tina and Richard Lawson. Miss Tina’s responsibilities last night included holding on to Blue’s juice box. And Beyoncé’s responsibility was to take selfies so that Blue could enter the photos in the archive she’s no doubt already starting to build for herself. Or that her parents have been building for her. After all, this is what her mother has been doing throughout her own career. And Blue’s career started probably even earlier than Beyoncé’s. Blue’s already been the VIP at two back to back Grammys. She has made iconic cameos in at least two music videos (Formation and Family Feud). Even the mascots last night had to come and pay their respects to her –with Diddy behind the camera: [A post shared by Beylite (@beylite)]( on Feb 19, 2018 at 5:38am PST Jay-Z did not join Blue and Beyoncé at the game last night. But he and Beyoncé did step out together the night before: Beyoncé & JAY-Z attending Mark Bradford's private art exhibit opening in LA (Feb. 15). [pic.twitter.com/VXeyLHRlyj]( — BEYONCÉ LEGION (@Bey_Legion) [February 16, 2018]( Did they see Black Panther at some point this weekend? We don’t know yet where and when [Beyoncé]( screened the movie (she has to have seen it by now) but we do know that she paid for her staff to go see it: Beyoncé gifted her entire [#Parkwood]( staff tickets to see [#BlackPanther](. [pic.twitter.com/inDUPx4JA9]( — BEYONCÉ LEGION (@Bey_Legion) [February 18, 2018]( In other Beyoncé news, Coachella is coming up fast. Inside two months now. What happens between now and then? Will there be new material? Or will she be performing from the catalogue? If there’s one thing we know about Beyoncé, she’s not going to Coachella to half-ass her sh-t, even if her set contains no new tracks. The point of Beyoncé is to create another level every single time she’s out there. There were some rumours circulating on Twitter this weekend that new Beyoncé song titles have been registered and everyone started freaking out. But a few of these titles are over a decade old so I’m not sure how much stock we should be putting into that. What’s notable here though is that people are ready, on high alert, waiting to be told by Beysus herself when the time has come. [Click here for the rest of the photos.]( Posted at 5:24 PM [Jennifer Lawrence enters the narrative]( [Jennifer Lawrence attends the EE British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) held at Royal Albert Hall on February 18, 2018 in London, England](Jennifer Lawrence has always been good for a one-liner. She’s quick-witted and unfiltered. Those two things have always been a part of a Jennifer Lawrence press tour. So, when J.Law started promoting Red Sparrow, I knew we’d be in for a few headline-grabbing cracks. Let’s start with Jennifer inserting herself into the Taylor Swift/Bad Blood vortex. Who’s got a Claire Danes in Homeland style-board documenting who Taylor is feuding with when? I can barely keep track and I do this for a living. In an interview with The New York Times, J.Law was asked, pegged to playing a spy in Red Sparrow, what classified secrets she would want to know in real-life. Her answer was this: “I’d like to know what’s going on with Karlie Kloss and Taylor Swift. That’s the honest-to-God truth… Is nobody else curious? It’s keeping me up at night.” That reads like a joke. She couldn’t really care about this, right? She’s a celebrity. They hate gossip. Oh come on, we know they love gossip just as much as the rest of us. In my opinion, [Jennifer Lawrence](’s best quality is her unabashed love for celebrity gossip. She openly stans for the Kardashians. Here she is, voluntarily inserting herself into the narrative. If you watch the delivery of the above line, (full video [here](, the bit starts around the 1:10:07 mark) it doesn’t come across like a sarcastic joke she doesn’t really want to know the answer to. The obvious question then is, couldn’t Jennifer Lawrence just ask [Taylor Swift]( what’s going on? In 2015, MTV called Taylor and J.Law “[one of Hollywood's hottest platonic power couples.](” That same year, Jennifer was spotted leaving TSwift’s New York apartment. If they weren’t as good friends as the media made them out to be, they were at least friendly. They even [used to text](. Is Taylor dropping friends like she’s dropping sh-tty singles? This Jennifer Lawrence quip tells me that they don’t text anymore. It also has reignited the public pressure on [Karlie Kloss]( and Taylor Swift to either put up a post clarifying that they are, in fact, still friends. If they don’t, isn’t that pretty much confirmation that Karlie has [officially joined Team Katy]( If we get a staged photo op in the next week, we’ll have Jennifer Lawrence to thank. J.Law was also at the BAFTAs yesterday and another one-liner is garnering a less warm reception. Jennifer presented the BAFTA for Best British Film. To introduce her, host Johanna Lumley called her “ravishing” and the “hottest actress on the planet.” Jennifer responded with, “That was a bit much, but thank you Joanna.” And? [The Daily Mail](, [The Sun](, [The Evening Standard]( and pretty much every other UK outlet is claiming that fans “slammed” Jennifer for “shading” Johanna Lumley. To me, this was just J.Law being J.Law. She made a quip to try to sound humble and get a few laughs. Why is this a story? The Jennifer Lawrence BAFTAs story I care more about is that her ex [Nicholas Hoult]( was also in attendance, looking like a snack. As far as we know, they are both currently single. They’ve broken up and gotten back before but they were also just on set of X-Men: The Dark Phoenix so if anything was going to rekindled, it probably would have happened then. In December, Gossip Cop had to clear up rumours that [Jennifer wanted Nicholas back](. (Lainey: Gossip Cop also tried to convince us that Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t dealing with Camila Morrone, ahem.) So, maybe probably it’s not happening but if Jennifer is going to get back with any of her exes, I’d pick Nicholas Hoult over scarf-lover Darren Aronofsky and Beyoncé’s opening act Chris Martin every time. [Click here for the rest of the photos.]( Posted at 3:53 PM [Kate & Frances]( [Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge attends the BAFTA British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London on February 18, 2018](The BAFTAs happened in London yesterday and, ahead of the event, since the BAFTAs are the first major red carpet after Time’s Up was launched, attendees were encouraged to wear black in support of the movement, just like they did at the Golden Globes. Leading up to the BAFTAs, there was all kinds of speculation about whether or not Princess Kate would wear black, in solidarity with other attendees. It was reported last week that she wouldn’t, reminding people that royals don’t usually wear black because it’s a mourning colour and that they prefer to remain neutral on political matters. Kate showed up in dark green, a Jenny Packham gown with a black ribbon around the waist and a black clutch. And immediately afterwards, people had feelings about whether or not that was the right move, considering that she’s worn black before and she’s worn black the way we saw many wearing black last night and at the Globes – with embellishments and prints. I appreciate that she was in a difficult position and [Kate](, as we’ve seen over the years, has worked hard to avoid controversy, to be as undramatic as possible. She’s a team player, she plays by the rules of her team, she stays in her lane. Harry is the one who’s been known to push back against protocol and assert his will whereas Will and Kate are, generally, the ones who observe the status quo. Kate would have known that, whatever she decided, it would have been a thing. If she didn’t wear black, we’d be talking about it. If she did wear black we’d be talking about it. Her choice to not wear black, then, presumably in her mind, was the lesser of the two things. So now the question, at least for me, is what she understands about the world and whether or not she’s getting bad advice. Was someone telling her that by wearing black, she’d be making a political statement? Or was she worried that by wearing black, she’d be making a political statement? Do they and she understand at all that this is not a political statement? Time’s Up is a movement that advocates for gender equality and against sexual harassment. These are not political positions, these are human rights. The United Nations has recognised gender equality to be a fundamental human right and sexual harassment is a moral and, at times, a criminal violation. There is nothing political about this and the people who politicise these issues are the ones who are actively trying to undermine efforts to confront them. What’s making me crazy is that Kate, or the people advising her, may be not be adequately informed about these issues. And they are directly connected to the issues that they patronise. The 100 Women in [Hedge Funds Philanthropic Initiatives]( is on the list of the [Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s patronages](! This is an agency that seeks to empower women in the investment industries and to help advance their careers. Their careers cannot advance if they are sexually harassed and NOT PAID EQUALLY! How the f-ck can they not see that direct association between Time’s Up and one of the organisations they themselves support? When someone with the profile of Catherine Cambridge avoids being onside with gender pay equality and openly taking a stand against sexual harassment, which should be as “safe” to support as donating to the food bank, it tells you how profoundly insidious the misinformation and the miseducation has been. She wasn’t the only high profile BAFTA attendee who decided against black though. Best Actress winner and the favourite to win the Best Actress Oscar, [Frances McDormand](, did have black on her dress but it was in the background. The primary colour of her outfit was red. Unlike Kate though, who remained silent on the issue, Frances directly addressed it in her acceptance speech: What Frances means, I think, is that you can be in support of Time’s Up and not wear black. And she used her opportunity on stage to reiterate that – not that there would be any doubt that Frances McDormand wouldn’t be in support of gender equality and against sexual harassment. And the same could be true of Princess Kate. She doesn’t have to wear black to be an ally. And yet, Kensington Palace has not commented on her colour decision at the BAFTAs. Frances used her words to show where she stands. In the absence of any words from Kate, there is only uncertainty to fill in the gap. [Click here for the rest of the photos.]( Posted at 3:04 PM [“Panther time”]( [Chadwick Boseman covers Rolling Stone](At a certain point in his interview with [Rolling Stone](, Chadwick Boseman tells journalist Josh Eells that he’d rather not respond to a particular question because, as he explains: "I'd love to answer that. But I don't want to give him Panther time." Who he was talking about is irrelevant. The point I want to make here is about “Panther time”, the ownership in that. And the pride in it. “Panther time” is exclusive, precious. It is “Panther time” now. And it is Chadwick Boseman’s time too. Finally. Because he’s 41 years old. And this is not uncommon for actors of colour to have to wait for their time, wait for their opportunities. As Chadwick shares, at first reluctantly, but in the end he realises why it’s necessary, he may not have had the opportunity if not for Phylicia Rashad (another connection between him and Ryan Coogler and Michael B Jordan) who mentored him when he was in university. It was Phylicia who organised scholarships from her own circle to send Chadwick and some of his classmates to attend a summer program at Oxford to study theatre. You know who ended up paying for Chadwick? It was Denzel Washington. He also sponsored Susan Kelechi Watson [to do the same](. What we are seeing here then is the fruit of investment, the few who did make it investing back into their communities to make sure that there can be more who make it. Ava DuVernay is doing this all the time. And artists like Ryan Coogler, [Chadwick Boseman](, Lupita Nyong’o and more will no doubt be continuing that work. As Chadwick shares in Rolling Stone, much of the focus of his career before the last few years, has been writing. He has a few projects in development that he’ll be producing himself and, it would seem, he’ll now be spending the capital he’s accumulated, his “Panther time”, on making sure those projects are realised – in addition, of course, to being T’Challa, the King of Wakanda and, currently, the King of Hollywood. Who has just been invited to present at the Oscars: Meet our first 12 [#Oscars]( presenters! And tune in on Sunday, March 4, to watch the show live. [pic.twitter.com/BE9jyuzBoM]( — The Academy (@TheAcademy) [February 16, 2018]( This, then, is the Black Panther victory lap. Or maybe it’s just the beginning of what could be a year-long victory lap. Already people are speculating that Black Panther may actually be a contender at next year’s Oscars. Gold Derby has just called Black Panther the “[first Oscar contender of 2018](”. So… how did Chadwick Boseman celebrate Black Panther’s historic weekend? Fittingly in Los Angeles, for NBA All-Star weekend. He was courtside for All-Star Saturday night, handing off the Black Panther mask to Victor Oladipo, whose parents are from Nigeria and Sierra Leone, during the dunk-off: T’Challa hands off to [@VicOladipo]( for the assist. [#BlackPanther]( [#NBADunkContest]( [#NBAAllstar]( [pic.twitter.com/uDtqYnu6uR]( — Chadwick Boseman (@chadwickboseman) [February 18, 2018]( Can we gossip about him now? Because on Saturday night and at the All-Star game proper on Sunday night, Chadwick was with, presumably, his girlfriend. Is this the same woman he was seen with [last summer]( and the same woman he was with two years before that? I need to know more. I also need to stop watching this because I don’t think I’m getting anything done. [A post shared by Rolling Stone (@rollingstone)]( on Feb 18, 2018 at 3:02pm PST [Click here for the rest of the photos.]( Posted at 1:55 PM [The Audacity of Black Panther]( [Michael B. Jordan attends The 2018 State Farm All-Star Saturday Night at Staples Center on February 17, 2018 in Los Angeles, California](When I was three, my big brother Sam smacked me on the head with a mini model car. He was five and frustrated that I kept stealing his toys. The incident left a small but permanent scar in the middle of my forehead. Throughout my childhood and into my early adulthood, I was ashamed of my scar. I hid my forehead under blunt bangs for years. Sam jokes that he put that scar there for a reason, and that I should be grateful because it adds character to my five-head. He’s always said that I should be proud of my scar. There is a moment in Black Panther, when the light hits Shuri (Wakanda’s chief tech innovator and T’Challa’s little sister) just right and I noticed that Letitia Wright has an indent on her forehead almost identical to my scar. I was already emotional, obviously, but in this moment, the little girl who grew up watching superhero movies with her big brothers, who felt shame not only of her scar but also of her hair, her skin and the oxtail lunches her mom packed for school, was right there with me watching Shuri and seeing herself reflected on screen. To be clear, growing up I never wanted to be anything other than black, the daughter of Ghanaian and Jamaican immigrants; I just knew that I was supposed to feel embarrassed by these things based on my surroundings and everything pop culture told me, so I did. But there is no shame in Wakanda, only pride. The pride of Wakanda is radical, it’s in-your-face, it’s unlike anything we have ever seen in a mainstream film about Africa, and therein lies the audacity of Black Panther. Eric Killmonger is Marvel’s best villain – arguably the best villain in a superhero movie, ever. Our resident Marvel scholar Sarah praised Killmonger’s villainy [in her review]( so that’s not just my Michael Bae Jordan bias talking. We’re going to be reading think-pieces on think-pieces on the complexity of Eric Killmonger for weeks to come. There are two lines that Killmonger says that, aside from Letitia’s scar, I have thought about every day since I saw Black Panther the first time. By viewing number three, these two lines have come to embody what Black Panther means to me personally, and for, as the kids say, the culture. They exemplify why this movie is audaciously black, yes, but also why it’s a tale of black identity and black responsibility. “My father said that one day he’d take me to Wakanda, the most beautiful place in the world... Can you believe that? A kid from Oakland running around believing in fairy tales.” That’s line number one. To me, this line is for [Ryan Coogler](, a kid from Oakland himself who has now become the wunderkind director of a Marvel film smashing box-office records as I type this, but this line is also for all of us. It’s for all the grown-up black kids who never dared to believe a film like this could exist. It’s for all the black kids growing up now who will get to run around believing in fairy tales starring themselves, their mothers, their fathers, their sisters and brothers. I never dared to dream that Shuri could exist. T’Challa is my brother’s greatest dream fulfilled. The vibrant, fully-formed, badass, dark-skinned women of Wakanda are beyond my mother’s wildest dreams. Wakanda may not actually exist but, as Jelani Cobb exquisitely writes for The New Yorker, neither does the shallow depiction of Africa that has [always existed in pop culture](. Wakanda is no more or less imaginary than the Africa conjured by Hume or Trevor-Roper, or the one canonized in such Hollywood offerings as “Tarzan.” It is a redemptive counter-mythology. Most filmmakers start by asking their audiences to suspend their disbelief. But, with Africa, Coogler begins with a subject about which the world had suspended its disbelief four centuries before he was born. Wakanda may seem like it’s just a fairy tale land created by Marvel and brought to screen by Coogler but if you’ve been to any of the epic cities across the continent, you know that they too are hiding in plain sight. They are not the Africa you see in World Vision commercials. I can speak to Accra, Ghana because my family is there and I daydream about going back, daily. Being there was like stripping all those silly insecurities away. It was like coming home. It was also an education because, despite all my dad’s stories and my cousins’ letters, as a naïve teenager I too had fallen victim to some of the preconceived notions of Africa that pervade Western culture. I was always proud to be Ghanaian but I don’t think I was expecting to feel such a sense of belonging or the urge to go back, immediately. I’m not sure if I anticipated being awestruck by Accra. Accra is not what the world thinks Africa is. Neither is Lagos or Johannesburg. Or so many more. These cities may not have hover bikes or the Dora Milaje but the beauty of Black Panther is that it is reflecting an image of Africa that does exist, while asking questions that address the complexity and pain of African history – as well as African-American history. Which brings me to the second line that has burrowed its way in between the scar-marked skin of my forehead and my cerebral cortex. I imagine it sits there, replaying over and over, reminding me of this movie’s brilliance. “Nah, bury me in the ocean with my ancestors that jumped from the ships. Because they knew that death was better than bondage.” This was said in a Disney movie. A Disney movie about superheroes! RYAN COOGLER DID THAT. Let the man direct every Marvel film from now until forever. Give [Michael B. Jordan]( an Oscar for the way he delivers this line. I just had to stan for Coogler and MBJ for a second because good lord, this line. Not only does it make a direct and uncomfortable (for the white people watching) reference to slavery, it also ties together the two dueling ideologies of Black Panther. You can interpret Wakanda’s hard stance of hiding itself from the rest of the world as a way of staying free of the death vs. bondage choice, but you can also interpret it as a betrayal of the people who did have to make that choice. Jelani Cobb’s New Yorker piece that I referenced earlier refuses to categorize Killmonger as a villain. … the two characters are essentially duelling responses to five centuries of African exploitation at the hands of the West. The villain, to the extent that term applies, is history itself. The villain is history itself. God, that’s brilliant. Try to tell me this is just a dumb action movie. TRY. One of my favourite scenes – and the one that got the most raucous response at each of my screenings— is when Shuri flippantly denigrates one of the only white characters in Black Panther by calling him “Colonizer.” That same character is barked over when attempting to speak a few scenes later. Believe me when I tell you that Black Panther depicts blackness AND whiteness in ways we have never seen. And this is just the beginning. We talk about representation often. The importance of Black Panther as an all-black film is paramount but that’s not where its significance ends. This weekend, I scrolled through Twitter joyously taking in all the pictures of beautiful black people dressed in kente cloth, dashikis and African prints heading to the theatre to revel in this momentous occasion. When I saw it last Thursday, I waited outside of the theatre for my brother in tears watching everyone arrive like it was their very own [Royal Attire Requested premiere](. Some may call this extra. They may not understand how one movie can spark so much joy or bring together so many different communities with one thing in common. I am overjoyed that the next generation has Shuri, Okoye, Nakia, M’Baku, T’Challa and Queen Ramonda to look up to but also that this movie’s success will make it so that there will be many more movies like this with characters for them to look up to. And maybe their dreams will be less clouded by images of shame or erasure. Black Panther is smart, funny and so damn good. It’s a shining beacon of permission to be unapologetically excellent and brazenly black. What does it look like if every black kid is given the hope to believe that their scars are something to be proud of, that their dark skin is beautiful, that their minds are capable and that they are more than worthy? That’s the audacity of Black Panther. Wakanda Forever. [Click here for the rest of the photos.]( Posted at 1:13 PM [Privacy Policy]( - [Unsubscribe](