With the rise of #cleaneating and the surprising turnaround in the street cred of veganism (it's now, like, totes on trend), it's hardly surprising that more of us are rethinking our meat intake. But new statistics suggest an even greater proportion of Britons are thinking about relinquishing their carnivorous status than you might have thought.
Almost half of the British population have either already cut their meat intake or are seriously considering doing so, according to new data from market research firm Mintel, with 28% having cut their meat intake in the past six months and 14% claiming to be interested in doing so.
The most common reason was health concerns, Mintel found, which questioned 2,000 consumers for its Meat-Free Foods Report. Nearly half (49%) of those who had cut their meat intake or were interested in doing so cited this as a reason, followed by weight management (29%), animal welfare concerns (24%) and environmental reasons (24%).
A report by the World Health Organisation back in 2015 concluded that there was a definite link between eating processed meat and cancer, claiming it was as dangerous as asbestos, alcohol, arsenic and tobacco. It also said red meat was probably a factor contributing to the disease.
Nevertheless, most people have still yet to take the plunge and give up meat completely, with 91% of Britons adopting a flexitarian approach and just 9% shunning red meat and poultry altogether.
However, the number of vegetarians and vegans in the UK could rise further in the coming years as it's young people who are most likely to follow a meat-free lifestyle. A fifth of under-25s said they don't eat red meat or poultry, which rose to a quarter of women in this age group. They're an ethically conscious group, too, with animal welfare and environmental benefits being their main reasons for doing so.
“Despite the ingrained popularity of meat and poultry, a clear trend has emerged of people cutting back and limiting how much of these products they eat," said Emma Clifford, a senior food analyst at Mintel. "That ‘flexitarianism’, a whole new dietary phrase, was coined to describe this movement also highlights its indisputably mainstream status.”
Self-styled health gurus like Gwyneth Paltrow, who advocates cutting out red meat but not shunning meat completely, may also have had an impact, along with clean-eating bloggers such as Madeleine Shaw and the Hemsley sisters, who also make a point of only eating "proper" meat.
The company behind Quorn, the popular meat substitute, recently announced a 19% growth in sales in the first half of 2017, which it put down to the rise of flexitarian or partially meat-free diets. Back in 2000, just 5% of the UK population (3 million people) was vegetarian.
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Women in India are sharing photos of themselves out after midnight in protest against a male politician who blamed a young female stalking victim for being out "late in the night”.
Varnika Kundu said in a Facebook post that two men chased and almost kidnapped her after midnight on Saturday while she was driving home in Chandigarh, northern India. The two men followed her in their vehicle before blocking her off, approaching her car on foot and banging on her windows with the aim of getting inside.
“They seemed to really be enjoying harassing a lone girl in the middle of the night, judging by how often their car swerved, just enough to scare me that it might hit me,” she wrote in the post, adding that the men drove alongside her for around five or six kilometres while "bullying" her to stop.
Kundu said she was "in a full-blown panic attack... because they would keep trying to corner me". "My hands shaking, my back spasming from fear, half in tears, half bewildered, because I didn't know if I'd make it home tonight. Who knew when, or if, the cops would show up." She said she felt lucky she wasn't "lying raped and murdered in a ditch somewhere”.
Responding to the incident, Ramveer Bhatti, the area vice president of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), claimed it wouldn't have happened if Kundu hadn't been out so late at night, The Times of India reported. “The girl should not have gone out at 12 in the night,” he opined. “Why was she driving so late in the night? The atmosphere is not right. We need to take care of ourselves.”
He then took Kundu's parents to task. “Parents must take care of their children. They shouldn’t allow them to roam at night. Children should come home on time, why stay out at night?” he added.
Bhatti's victim-blaming comments sparked understandable fury in women on social media and they began sharing defiant photos of themselves out late at night under the hashtag #AintNoCinderella.
Kundu and her father defended themselves after Bhatti's rebuke, telling news broadcaster NDTV that his claims were evidence of a “well-established tactic” designed to intimidate and prevent her from pursuing justice.
“I’m supposed to be wondering about what this is going to do to my image and my life. But what would those guys have done to my life if they had caught me?" she asked. “What I do and where I go and at what time I do it is my business.”
Sexual violence against women is a huge problem in India, with several devastating cases of rape and sexual assault gaining worldwide attention in recent years. Around 40,000 incidents of rape occur in the country every year, but the real figure is thought to be much higher due to victims' fears over reporting the crime.
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Women watch porn, obviously. The taboo around this fact has thankfully begun to dwindle over the last few years, thanks to the ascendance of ethical porn, porn centred around female pleasure and feminist directors such as Erika Lust.
But, while it's been well documented that men can suffer from watching too much porn, with side effects ranging from erectile dysfunction to sexual dissatisfaction, less discussed – still – are the potentially negative effects it can have on women. Women get addicted to porn, too, for instance.
But even a casual porn-viewing habit can affect our mental health and have a detrimental impact on our sex lives and relationships, as a new study suggests. Researchers from the University of New Brunswick, Canada, claim that porn can lead women to have "unrealistic expectations" of sex, reported The Sun.
The study of 1,000 adults, of whom two thirds were young women, required participants to fill out an online survey on how much they watched porn, their body- and performance-related distractions during sex, their perception of their genitals, and their expectations of their partner.
The bad news? The research found that porn can lead women to expect too much from their male partners in the bedroom and result in them feeling unsatisfied with sex. “Genitalia can be digitally or cosmetically altered, depicting larger than average penis size," said Kaitlyn Goldsmith, who led the study.
“Intercourse is shown to last longer than average, men sustain erections longer and women experience orgasms more easily than in real-world encounters," she added. Unfortunately for straight men, watching porn also led the women to feel dissatisfied with their partner's appearance.
"Live in the sunshine. Swim in the sea. Drink the wild air." Ralph Waldo Emerson said that. That's also the caption Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen) uses in a series of beachy Instagram posts in Ingrid Goes West, a comedic thriller about the perils of Instagram infatuation.
Taylor is an Instagram influencer — one of those social media savants who has a keen eye for taking good pictures of avocado toast. She has a dog named Rothko, who's her muse. She loves posting photos of farm-fresh fruit. She's got a husband named Ezra (Wyatt Russell), and an effortless boho-Cali vibe, like a model in a Free People catalogue.
This is all information Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza) gleans from her Instagram presence during one frantic stalk session featured in the clip below. (Taylor's Instagram handle is _welltaylored_ — appropriately cheeky and irreverent.)
Ingrid, the titular character of the Matt Spicer-directed film, is looking for guidance. She has a thing for social media. (Don't we all? This film will make you question it.) In the clip below, she's clad in a bathrobe and transfixed by Taylor's L.A.-centric Insta. It's an all-too familiar sight. (I defy you to find me a person who has not lost an hour or two poring over the lives of Instagram influencers.)
"There's science, logic, and reason. And then there is California," Taylor writes in one post. Her presence toes the line of vomit-worthy and enviable, which is the study of Ingrid Goes West. With one decisive click, Ingrid becomes one of Taylor's 267,000 followers.
And thus, the obsession begins. Watch the full clip, below. Ingrid Goes West is in UK cinemas on 17th November.
Ingrid Goes West
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The escalating rhetoric between President Trump and North Korea in the last 24 hours has many people asking, Should we be scared?
Here's what happened: On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that North Korea had successfully created a miniaturized nuclear warhead capable of fitting inside a missile. Hours later, President Trump berated North Korea for making more threats against the United States and warned that if the country kept it up, "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen." North Korea's army responded in a statement distributed by state media Wednesday by saying it was examining a plan to use ballistic missiles to make an "enveloping fire" around Guam, a U.S. territory that's home to the Andersen Air Force Base.
Despite the inflammatory language Trump and the North Korean army have used, analysts say nuclear war between North Korea and the United States is not imminent. However, the incendiary rhetoric from both sides is increasing the risk, so analysts are calling on all parties to de-escalate.
To help you calm down, here's what experts in South Korea, China, and the U.S. had to say.
There's a slim chance there will be an attack.
A North Korean attack or an American pre-emptive strike is unlikely, said John Delury, an associate professor of East Asian Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.
He saw North Korea's statement as a warning to Washington that its missiles could reach targets in the region, rather than one of an actual attack.
"Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say if North Korea was planning some kind of pre-emptive or surprise attack on Guam, we would not be reading about it in North Korean media," Delury said. "Now, that said, you do need to track their threats. And there are cases where they [have] made a specific threat and carried it out."
A U.S. strike against North Korea would need the support of South Korea, he said, because the North would likely retaliate against the South and its 600,000 troops.
"It's not something you can do without robust, full support from the South Korean government people, and there's absolutely no sign that South Korea will support military options with North Korea," Delury said.
But, China is concerned.
Chinese government-backed scholars said Beijing is deeply concerned about the latest statements from Trump and North Korea. They hold the U.S. partly responsible, saying Trump's heated rhetoric is fueling the flames.
Trump's tough talk has contributed to an increase in animosity that is pushing the sides closer to armed conflict, said Cheng Xiaohe of the School of International Studies at Beijing's Renmin University.
"If not kept well under control, this verbal spat could turn into a military clash," he said, adding that China should dispatch diplomats to engage in shuttle diplomacy to bring the sides to the negotiating table.
Zhang Liangui, a professor at the ruling Communist Party's main training academy, believes the U.S., China, and Russia need to come together to force the North to de-escalate.
"The big countries should not attack each other, but unite to better cooperate on maintaining the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," he said.
Still, North Korea doesn't have the capability yet.
U.S. nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker, who has repeatedly visited North Korea's nuclear facilities, said he doesn't think the nation currently has weapons systems for "enveloping fire" around Guam, as it threatened.
"I don't believe they have the capability to do so yet, and besides, why would they want to commit suicide by attacking a remote target like Guam?" he said. "The real threat is stumbling into an inadvertent nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula by misunderstanding or miscalculation. Inflammatory rhetoric on both sides will make that more likely. It's time to tone down the rhetoric."
Hecker said North Korea does not have a sophisticated nuclear weapon like those of the U.S., Russia, Britain, China, or France, the major nuclear superpowers.
"The shorter-range missile that can reach South Korea and Japan can accommodate larger nuclear warhead payloads," he said. "Making the warhead sufficiently small, light, and robust to survive an ICBM delivery is extremely challenging and still beyond North Korea's reach."
The way to avert a war with North Korea is to have a conversation, and that's not happening, Hecker said, adding, "Unfortunately, there seems to be no serious dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang, only threats."
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Now that the full trailer for Mother! has been released, we're finally learning more and more about the top-secret Darren Aronofsky film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem. That being said, we still don't know what exactly happens in the movie, and why the horrible things in the trailer are occurring. Short story short, Jennifer Lawrence's home welcomes some unexpected visitors (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer), just as the house starts literally crumbling before her eyes.
In order to effectively portray the character, Lawrence spent most of the film in an extremely dark place — something she told Vogue Magazine was difficult to do.
"I hate talking about acting because it’s so hard to talk about it without sounding like a douche," she said in an interview for the magazine's September 2017 cover. "I had to go to a darker place than I’ve ever been in my life...I didn’t know if I’d be able to come out OK."
In fact, the only way she was able to keep her head above water was to indulge in one of her favourite things: reality TV. According to the interview, the 26-year-old would take to her very own "Kardashian tent" to reset.
"It was a tent that had pictures of the Kardashians and Keeping Up with the Kardashians playing on a loop — and gumballs," she explained. "My happy place."
For the record, director Aronofsky says he "wasn’t involved in that."
"I was like, 'What are you talking about, ‘the Kardashians?'" he joked to the outlet.
However, it wasn't just Lawrence's mental health that suffered on set. She actually dislocated a rib because she was hyperventilating so hard, begging the question once again, what could possibly have been going on?
"I ended up getting on oxygen," she revealed. "I have oxygen tubes in my nostrils, and Darren’s like, 'It was out of focus; we’ve got to do it again.' And I was just like, 'Go fuck yourself.'"
In case you missed it, you can check out the trailer below for more insight into this terrifying movie, hitting cinemas September 15.
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In a profile for Nylon,Dunst admitted that finding good roles for women in Hollywood is still difficult, claiming that the best roles generally go to whomever is most trendy. In the words of interviewer Molly Lambert, those are the people who are "hot and bankable at the moment."
"You're almost better off being older," Dunst revealed. Unfortunately, roles for younger women tend to fit the ingénue archetype — they're young, wide-eyed characters that lack agency in their own lives, Dunst explained. The actress described these roles as "the young girl who's just, like, beautiful and things are happening to her."
Roles for women, say, above the age of 30 tend to be a bit more complex, but that doesn't mean they're hefty. Dunst admitted that she'll often take a small part in a good film in the interest of playing a more complex role.
"A lot of the choices I make are director-driven,” she said. “I'd rather do a tiny little whatever in a good film.”
This isn't the first time Dunst has expressed frustration over gendered casting decisions. In an interview with Marie Claire in June, Dunst said that women in Hollywood these days have to have an Instagram following. Men, by contrast, do not.
"You can get jobs based on your Instagram following these days," Dunst said. "That's insane, but that's why I have it now. As a man, you could get away with not having it. As a woman in this industry, I think you gotta do it now. It's just part of the game."
If only "the game" weren't skewed against women.
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Prepare to throw at least some of your selfie standards out of the frame. A recent study from University of Waterloo in Canada is calling into question conventional wisdoms about what makes for a perfect shot.
This isn't the first study to examine the type of photo quintessential of the Instagram era, but it does take a new approach. Prior research used selfies posted to Instagram as their test subjects, running algorithms to find commonalities, but the problem with this approach is that those photos are all different. For example, if you look at one of Kim Kardashian's selfies compared to one of Beyoncé's — the clothes, hair, and makeup are distinct, and could each have an effect on whether a fan likes one image more than another.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo stripped away these differences in order to focus on three fundamental elements of selfie composition: Where the face is in the frame, how lighting frames the face, and the size of the face in the shot (or, how far away the camera was from the face when taking the selfie). To limit external factors, such as clothing and hair, researchers used what they called synthetic selfies: fake selfies that were computer generated using 3D computer graphics.
Photo: Courtesy of Daniel Vogel.
After creating 4000 selfie variations with six different models, they asked people to select which ones they preferred. The results point to three essentials for taking the ideal selfie.
1) Selfies shouldn't be shot too close to the face.
"In order to get good distance, you need to overextend your arm a bit and hold [the camera] a bit farther away than you might normally when taking a selfie," Daniel Vogel, one of the study's authors and an associate professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, told Refinery29.
This doesn't mean you need a selfie stick — in fact, using one could mean the photo is taken too far away from your face. Vogel notes, though, that holding your arm an inch or two farther than usual may feel a bit unnatural.
2) Selfies should have even lighting.
Second, Vogel found that the face should be lit evenly, roughly from the front of the face, though not too high or low, since that could create shadows. This theory gives some validation to the effectiveness of the Kim K-promoted Lumee iPhone case, which is lit around the edges, as well as the case created by Beyoncé's stylist, Ty Hunter.
3) Selfies should be centred.
The third, and most surprising finding of the research, is that the face should be centred in the frame, closer to the upper edge. This goes against conventional wisdom, Vogel says, which argues for the rule of thirds, or the idea that the photo should be split into three parts, with the face falling on one of the dividing "power lines." Vogel says that this could change if there's another object, say the Eiffel Tower, or person in the shot. But if you're going it solo, you probably want to stick to the centre.
If you doubt the validity of the study because the researchers used 3D computer generated models, consider this: When Vogel had real people use the researchers' algorithm for the perfect selfie to guide their shots, their photos were rated 26-percent higher than those taken without it.
So if Instagram likes are what you're going for, opt for a selfie for your face is centred, evenly lit, and smaller in the frame.
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This seems to be the summer of Portugal. A small country hugging the west coast of Europe, Portugal always fell well below France, Spain, and Italy on my European adventure list. But in the past six months, I’ve heard its name many times over; so, when the opportunity for a quick trip came my way, I was excited to experience this much-buzzed-about country for myself.
I always prefer to travel to a spot that's a little off-the-beaten-path, so I was excited to visit the city of Porto. What I discovered upon arrival was a port town full of natural beauty, strong and delicious wine, and kind people. It turned out that my favourite parts of Porto were accessible to those on a budget, too.
Rouje Robe GabinCourtesy Of Emily Holland.Photo: Dominic Dudley/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images.
Hands down my favourite experience in Porto was a visit to the Serralves Gardens. The gardens cover almost 45 acres of land and range from Alice in Wonderland -esque manicured hedges and fountains, to natural ponds and lush foliage, to meticulous fields of vegetables. The park is home to rotating artist installations and has featured sculptures by Claes Oldenburg, Dan Graham, Fernanda Gomes, Richard Serra, and Veit Stratmann.
If wandering this epic green space isn’t enough, the Contemporary Art Museum in the grounds is one of the most visited in all of Europe, with epic exhibitions featuring both Portuguese and international artists.
Also within the park, the Villa (Casa de Serralves) is an incredible pink Art Deco building often used as an extension of the museum for temporary exhibitions, and it's a spectacle from the outside as well.
The grand buildings lining the streets of Porto are frequently tiled in bright blues, yellows and pinks. Just off the main shopping strip, the Sao Bento Train Station is one of the most impressive examples of this tile work. The lobby is fully tiled in blue and white and is the perfect backdrop for an epic selfie.
Walk across Dom Luis Bridge to the Serra do Pilar church for amazing views of the old city. With the ceramic-tiled rooftops lining the hills and the winding river — this view is pure gold. (In fact, the river is called Douro which means “pure gold.”) The 17th-century church is also worth a tour. It's laid out in a unique circular design, and the inside features gold-leaf carvings and impressive columns.
DVF DressPhoto: Getty Images. Photo Courtesy Of Emily Holland. Photo: Getty Images. Photo Courtesy Of Emily Holland.
If you like a little refreshment with your view, head to Miradouro Ignez. This small outdoor watering hole serves up coffee, wine and spectacular views of the Douro. Wine in Porto is not only cheap, it’s incredibly strong. Some bottles have an alcohol content as high as 20%!
Photo: villorejo/Alamy Stock Photo.Photo: Neil Setchfield/Alamy Stock Photo.
Shopping in Porto is great for those unique, one-of-a-kind finds. Pop into any number of the vintage jewellery, clothing, mid-century furniture, and specialty shops in the old town. The infamous Livraria Lello is worth a stop, too. Rumoured to have inspired J.K. Rowling, the bookstore should be on your list whether you’re a Harry Potter fan or not. Climb the crooked staircase, or peruse the excellent selection of books the store has to offer.
Casa Almada has an incredible selection of mid-century modern pieces as well as its own line of furniture made in Portugal. If you're a vintage clothing lover, then make sure to stop by Ornitorrinco Vintage. The selection is awesome and budget-friendly.
The newly opened Claus Porto store is a beautifully designed shop complete with a small museum on the second floor. If you're searching for great gifts, look no further. The brand has taken great care to create the most beautiful Art Deco-inspired packaging, which makes these little presents that much more special.
In just three short days, I was able to experience so much of this big little city. Before it becomes the next tourist hotspot, I highly recommend taking a quick flight from Lisbon to visit this magical city on the river of gold.
Travel and accommodation for the author were provided byClaus Portofor the purpose of writing this story.
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The woman, who resides in Moscow, Russia, provided a straightforward description of her lifestyle and we are so here for it.
"I’m ninety but I feel like I’m fifty. I don’t take any medicine. I never complain. I’m just happy to be alive. I tell people: 'Start with what you have, not with what you want,'" she said. "Every day I dance for two hours. And I’m still really interesting too. I love politics and literature. I love the sciences. And I’ve got a boyfriend named Alexander. We exchange books. I don’t even know how old he is."
We don't even know the name of this rockstar, but she is wise and we could all learn a thing or two from her about how to live our best lives.
Although this woman's recipe for health and longevity sounds pretty simple and straightforward, it definitely holds water. Research has shown that a positive outlook could lead to better health and a longer life span. We all know that exercise is good for the body and mind, so why not pick an enjoyable option like dancing?
She also keeps her mind sharp by reading and educating herself about politics and the sciences, which is beneficial to one's health.
So next time we're about to settle in a Netflix marathon, maybe we should consider dancing, reading, or exchanging books with a beau (age: unknown) instead. After all, it can't hurt to follow the advice of someone who definitely has life figured out.
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As I stand in the bathroom rubbing a cotton bud-like instrument inside my mouth, my mind floats back to a couple of years ago when a rather swoon-worthy nurse instructed me to swab myself in a toilet at a north London clinic during a routine sexual health check-up. This time round, the test is for something I never thought I'd be investigating: my DNA. And before images of paternity tests start springing to mind, the real reason I'm posting my saliva to the US is to discover more about my health and fitness. DNA tests are all the rage apparently, with a slew of companies promising to analyse your genes and in return offer to help you maximise your fitness.
The aim is to provide people with information about themselves so they can make informed decisions on their health and fitness, says Kate Blanchard, cofounder of US-based biomedical research company Orig3n, which produces DNA kits for everything from nutrition to your skin. “We believe that when people can get direct access to their genetic information, along with insight into how it affects health and behaviour, they can make choices that are right for their own bodies – not what works for someone else.”
So two weeks after posting the swabs off to Orig3n, what did I learn about myself? In my first report, "Fuel", which analyses how your body responds to food and nutrients and is split into four key sections such as food sensitivity and food breakdown, I'm relieved to discover that my lactose tolerance levels are 'normal', as is my alcohol tolerance. I have a 'normal' aversion to coriander, which is a pretty weird thing to find out about, right? I find out I'm 'gifted' at caffeine metabolism – with one of my genes metabolising caffeine four times faster than slow metabolisers, which would be a massive feat if I actually drank the stuff. It feels like a bit of a waste. Why can't I have speed of light metabolism when it comes to loaves of bread? Or Dairy Milk bars?
Later in the report I'm informed that I have a 'normal metabolism', which goes against everything I've ever understood about my body – assuming that not having a super slim physique was somehow attributed to having a slow metabolism. I've actually gone through life telling everyone that I have a slow metabolism (based on no facts whatsoever) and now, apparently, I've been found out. So now I understand nothing. I'm also a little surprised when it informs me that I have the normal gene variant in the 'sweet tooth' category, when I can definitely scoff three caramel slices in one sitting. On the downside, the report flags up that I may have high cholesterol levels and that I'm deficient in vitamin D, and recommends that I boost my sun exposure and eat foods like salmon, tuna and eggs.
The next report, "Fitcode", enlightens me on everything to do with my fitness. It tells me that I have AA genotype, meaning I excel at endurance. Although I do love pounding the buoyant salt water in the Margate tidal pool or cycling along the chalk cliffs of the nearby bays, I think back to my schooldays when I would win the 100-metre race but be a red-faced teenager cursing the cross country track. I also discover that I have fewer fast-twitch muscles, which are responsible for quick movement such as jumping or sudden bursts of energy. Maybe that's my lack of co-ordination explained?
Interestingly, I find that I'm a rare breed; I'm part of just 10% of the population with a gene that has less range of joint motion and less flexible tendons, meaning I'm more prone to injury. Another interesting takeaway is that I tend to recover fast from exercise.
So did I come away feeling enriched with a wealth of information about my body? The opportunity to really dig deep into my health and fitness was definitely fascinating. Some of the results I'm probably never going to think about again (such as being 'gifted' when it comes to vitamin B6 – which I had to google), and as I live a fairly healthy lifestyle I won't be making major diet changes, but I'll follow up on the potentially worrying vitamin D issue, which could go some way to explaining why I'm often tired (and hey, it's another excuse to head to the beach at lunchtime) and I'll look to buy supplements in the winter.
Exercise-wise, I think it just backed up some of what I knew, and as I already do a combination of HIIT, pilates, swimming and weights, I don't think there's anything I'll change. But it was handy to know that I recover fast from exercise so don't need to be too overcautious about hitting the weights the day after a HIIT workout.
However, some critics are sceptical about such tests. “There is real science behind them, but their predictive power is very low,” says Jon Slate, professor of evolutionary genetics at the University of Sheffield. “They don't test an awful lot of genes – the two you took test 24 genes each. Trying to predict somebody's fitness on the basis of 24 or so genes will simply not provide very robust results.”
With "Fuel" and "Fitcode" costing $149 (£115) each, they're not exactly cheap. They might be a way for fitness and health fanatics to step up their game but for everyone else, it may be more cost-effective to listen to your body.
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There are people being held as modern slaves and victims of human trafficking in "every large town and city in the country" in the UK – more than previously thought, the National Crime Agency said today.
There could be as many as tens of thousands of victims hiding in plain sight, the agency said, with a recent crackdown having highlighted the scale of the crime, the BBC reported. Previously it was believed there were 10,000-13,000 victims, but this figure has been described as the "tip of the iceberg".
Modern slaves are people forced to work against their will, often in nail bars, brothels, on construction sites, on cannabis farms and in agriculture. Human traffickers, who are out to make money, lure vulnerable people to the UK with false assurances of jobs, education and sometimes love, reported the BBC.
Will Kerr, the NCA's director of vulnerabilities, said he'd been shocked by discovering the extent of the problem. There are more than 300 live policing operations currently focussing on modern slavery in the UK. "The more we look, the more we find," he said.
In fact, the problem is so extensive that every one of us most likely comes into contact with victims every day. Kerr added: “As you go about your normal daily life and as you’re engaged in a legitimate economy accessing goods and services, there is a growing and a good chance you will come across a victim who has been exploited in one of those different sectors,” reported The Guardian.
Victims most often come from countries including Albania, Nigeria, Vietnam, Romania and Poland, but some also originate from the UK. They tend to be vulnerable and from minority or socially-excluded groups, but can be of any gender or age. Anti-slavery charities believe victims are often fleeing poverty, a lack of opportunities and/or education at home, and social and political instability or war.
Most modern slaves in the UK are trapped in sexual exploitation, with the second most common form of slavery being labour exploitation, forced criminal exploitation and domestic servitude. One case, cited by Kerr, involved a 12-year-old Roma girl who was stopped at border control and set for a life as a domestic slave.
"She was being brought in to work for a family in part of the UK, where she had effectively been sold by her father – or it had been facilitated by her father – and she was being brought in to take this family's children to school and pick them up every day, and clean the house in between," he said. Those involved in the case have had criminal charges brought against them, but more needs to be done to ensure other traffickers are caught.
Vulnerable people are often unaware that they're victims of slavery and the British public is generally unaware of the signs that someone is being abused. According to the NCA, these can include the way they're dressed, visible injuries, signs of stress and the way in which they became involved in their area of work.
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For many years, Theresa would wake up at 3.45am each morning to start her three-hour walk to school, guided only by torchlight. Constantly looking over her shoulder, she was always on high alert due to the many stories she’d heard of men who lay waiting in the bushes, ready to abduct girls and force them into marriage.
“I wasn’t happy walking to school because of the long distance, and I was so scared of someone snatching me,” the 17-year-old recalls. “When it’s rainy season the grass grows really tall and I was afraid men might be hiding there.”
A surprising solution is helping Theresa, and other girls in her situation, to avoid these kidnappings. She was recently given a bicycle, which means that, as well as getting to class in half the time, it’s far harder for abductors to grab her.
Theresa
Despite it being illegal in Ghana for anyone under 18 to get married, where Theresa lives, one in five women will still be married before they reach that age. In poorer, rural areas, this can rise to one in three. Child marriage has huge implications for wider society as well as for the women involved – those who marry underage are unlikely to stay in education, leaving them financially dependent on men and perpetuating the cycle of poverty. A recent World Bank report predicted that child marriage will cost developing countries trillions of dollars by 2030.
Benjamin Kwesi Tawaih, who works for Action Aid in Ghana, explains that, despite an ongoing government campaign to tackle child marriage, there are two main factors driving the practice. The first is, unsurprisingly, poverty. “Many people in these communities are living on less than 68p a day,” he says. “If someone comes to a family and offers them just a bit of money to marry their daughter, they will often agree to it.”
The second factor – which is behind the abductions that Theresa and her friends are so scared of – goes back to an old custom in the country’s upper west region, in which groups of men would go and “grab” a wife from rival villages. Around 50 girls are still abducted this way every year.
“In the olden times, a community from one town would go to another and grab a wife for one of them,” Benjamin continues. “Then the people from the other town would come to theirs and kidnap another girl. It was about displaying community power.
“The men who do this today are latching on to this old custom. They’ll say it’s tradition, that their forefathers did it. They’re often men who’ve gone away to work in the city, have a bit of money, then come back to these poor communities and feel like they have some power.”
Girls are most vulnerable when walking to school or out doing errands such as going to the market. Typically a group of men will lie in wait, grab the girl from behind, and take her to a house where her proposed “husband” will be waiting. According to Benjamin, the man’s mother or grandmother will often be there too; she'll tell the girl what is happening and try to convince her to accept it.
The girl will be kept there for a few days while the men go to her parents, offering money or gifts, and arrange the marriage.
The bicycle solution arose when NGOs were carrying out research into the factors behind girls dropping out of education. “Many live as far as 10km away from school, so they’re walking through the dark at 4 or 5am, through thick bush and dangerous terrain,” explains Benjamin. As well as being more vulnerable to abductors, many would drop out of school simply because it was too exhausting to travel there and back.
Theresa with her bike
In 2015, 40 bicycles were purchased for some of the girls, with those living furthest away given top priority. The following year, another 40 were donated from Sweden. Out of all the girls given bicycles so far, not a single one has been abducted, and all are still in education.
If a girl escapes or is rescued before the marriage takes place, it’s possible for her to return home and carry on with her life. NGOs including Action Aid have been training community-based “Combat” groups to do the double work of rescuing girls and also educating others that both forced and underage marriage are illegal.
“The police in Ghana have a lot of funding and logistics problems – sometimes they won’t even have enough petrol to drive out to villages and make arrests,” explains Benjamin. “Members of the community have been trained up in domestic violence laws, so if they hear of a girl being captured, they will find out where she’s being held and demand her release.”
Mary-Lily, 50, works as a local teacher and volunteers on the Combat squad. She recently helped secure the release of two abducted girls, working alongside their parents, and says that challenging community attitudes is one of the most important parts of her job. “Even a few years ago, most people were not even aware that [underage marriage] is against the constitution,” she explains. “We didn’t take action when the girls were taken away.” She says that if they threaten the kidnappers with legal action and make it clear that what they are doing is against the law, they can usually secure the girls’ release. Between 2010 and 2016, a total of 152 girls were rescued this way.
Mary-Lily
Theresa says that her ambition is to be president of Ghana one day. “I’m not afraid that boys will catch me on the way to school, I know I can just go faster,” she says. “If it wasn’t for the bicycle, perhaps I wouldn’t still be in school.”
The bicycles are one solution but Benjamin says the biggest challenge remains changing people’s attitudes towards women and their roles in society. “In all honesty, girls’ education just isn’t prioritised,” he says. “If a family has a lot of children and not much money, then they will prioritise the boys’ schooling – they’ll think, what’s the point in educating a girl if she will just be a wife and mother?
“We’re trying to help people see the long-term picture – that if a girl is educated, she is more likely to have a career and bring money in that way. Then the parents become more invested in keeping them in school and won’t betroth them into marriage at a young age.
“It’s about helping them see that underage marriage is not in anyone’s best interest.”
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Warning: This story contains mild spoilers for Atomic Blonde.
Here's a controversial opinion: I don't want a female James Bond. It's not because I believe that 007 is a macho role that a woman would be unable to take on. On the contrary, I'm sure that a woman could kick Daniel Craig's ass. But should she have to fill a man's Crockett & Jones shoes to do it?
Enter Atomic Blonde, the new spy-thriller directed by David Leitch, which stars Charlize Theron as Lorraine Broughton, a leather-clad deadly British asset sent to retrieve vital information from 1989 Berlin, mere days before the fall of the wall.
Like Bond, Broughton works for MI6, the British intelligence services. And yes, she's broody. But that's where the similarities end, despite what Chris Hemsworth thinks. That's because Broughton isn't a female version of a spy. She's a female spy, period.
Before Wonder Woman changed the game, women in action movies tended to fall into three categories: the love interest, the hot nerd who becomes the love interest, and the tough girl, who, after a series of will-they-won't-theys and mellow fight scenes, finally learns to love. (And to be honest, much as I adore Wonder Woman, even she couldn't resist the magnetic pull of Chris Pine, by far the superior Chris.)
The first time we see Broughton, she's lying in a bathtub filled with ice cubes, her body covered in scary-looking purple bruises. She emerges from the icy depths, steps out onto the marble floor, plops some more ice in a glass, and pours herself a vodka on the rocks. (Later in the film, we see how she came to be so black and blue, in one of the most violent fight scenes in the history of movies.) This is not a woman who needs saving. This is not a woman who hitches her star to a man, no matter how babe-ly James McAvoy looks as a punk rock bandit. In fact, her fling is a woman (the impossibly cool Sofia Boutella), which shouldn't be monumental but remains noteworthy in such a mainstream film.
This is a woman who does her fighting in a series of glamorous black turtlenecks, mini-skirts and thigh-high boots — flat ones, of course; she's not a masochist. Heels are to be used as a weapon. She doesn't hide her bruises. Instead, she wears them like armour. They stop people from needlessly approaching her.
Broughton isn't a female version of a spy. She's a female spy, period.
I understand the urge to compare Broughton to Bond. They are, in many ways, cut from the same cloth. They're emotionally unavailable, damaged, and chic AF. In an interview with W Magazine back in June, Theron herself made the connection. "Lorraine is a little bit like Bond," she said. "He drinks a lot of martinis, doesn’t he? Shaken or not stirred, or whatever they are. Yeah, Lorraine and James are equally messed up. Maybe they should marry! Maybe they should have a baby! That would be an interesting baby."
With all due respect to Theron, I disagree. Bond fights two things: the bad guys, and his own demons. But as a woman, Broughton brings a new foe to the table: the patriarchy. Being a badass super spy doesn't prevent Broughton from being underestimated and objectified. I honestly lost track of how many times she was called "suka," the Russian word for "bitch."
But perhaps the most satisfying part of Atomic Blonde is how she reacts to all that. She doesn't take a swing at a lone bad guy, only to miss and fall over, leaving the man to save the day. She takes on five highly-trained KGB officers at a time, taking them out methodically until she can barely stand. She's not invincible — the fighting takes a toll — but she's not a token female badass, either. And literal cheers erupted in the theatre when, after eliminating a particularly stubborn enemy, she deadpanned: "Am I a bitch now?"
Playing a strong female character is old hat for Charlize Theron, who basically stole the show from Tom Hardy as Furiosa in Mad Max. In an interview with Refinery29's Arianna Davis, Theron explained the importance of such roles, and why she's drawn to them. "I guess it's because deep down inside, I actually believe that that's what we are," she said. "We are more capable than we are often portrayed in movies to be. And we're not necessarily given the right amount of credit for being that capable. So I try really hard to make my roles reflect women the way I believe we really are."
These aren't empty words: Theron trained so intensely that she cracked two teeth, and had to undergo a a series of root canals. And that's why I feel so strongly against a female 007. It's not because I think Idris Elba deserves a chance (although he does!), or because Daniel Craig was just re-cast despite claiming he'd rather die by suicide than reprise the role (ugh!). It's because we don't need a woman-version of a male character. We need a fully-fledged, complex woman who stands on her own. And Atomic Blonde gives us just that.
Atomic Blonde is in UK cinemas now. Come for the feminism, stay for the killer soundtrack.
There is a bit of risk involved when a white woman takes on the responsibility of telling a story about black girls and their communities. A lot can get lost in translation, leaving the end product flat and flavourless. With meaningful diversity in high demand, this isn’t a ball to be dropped. It’s a risk that Amanda Lipitz undertook when she made the documentary Step. And it paid off. The film follows three black girls in Baltimore during their senior year of high school, a time marked by the death of Freddie Gray and subsequent riots, the college admission process, and the quest to take first place at the Bowie State step competition.
Step won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Inspirational Filmmaking at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Since its debut at Sundance, Fox Searchlight has also purchased rights for the film for over $4 million according to Deadline. The deal includes distribution and remake rights. But this is more than a personal victory for Lipitz, who has accomplished no small feat as a female director.
Step tells the story of a black community the way it should be told: as a series of overlapping themes and layers, each with a history of their own. The heightened racial tensions in their native Baltimore are conveniently highlighted in the wake of Gray’s death. But the incident and the city-wide riots that ensued thereafter aren’t framed as an eye-opening moment about the realities of race for the Lethal Ladies of Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women step team. Instead, they represent just another layer, albeit unsettling, of what it means to be black in a city like Baltimore. Dialogue about the events surrounding Gray’s death come to the teenagers as easy as conversations about reality television.
It’s the ease with which Step captures black joy, even in the midst of such high levels of personal and communal stress, that makes it special. Stepping is a style of dance created by historically black fraternities and sororities. Stepping involves turning the whole body into an instrument, and collectively with other members of the team, putting on an orchestrated performance. The connection between stepping as a practice rooted in higher education and the fact that the seniors of the BLSYW are using it as a way to make college a reality for themselves cannot be overlooked.
In movies and television, the way out of the hood is too often frames as a fantastical golden ticket saga. The payoff being a life of fame from a professional sports league or the music industry. But social mobility also looks like being the first in your family to go to college. It looks like financing that education without amassing a lifetime of student loan debt. Despite the severe lack of resources coming into poor and working-class black communities, we have still managed to create outlets like stepping that can serve as a pipeline toward that mobility.
Lipitz, who was involved in the founding of BLSYW charter school, is doing her part to enrich this pipeline away from the camera as well. She will be using proceeds from the deal with Fox Searchlight to go toward scholarships for the 19 girls on the team and a donation to the school. The success of Step is an example of putting privilege to work and letting our stories tell themselves.
Step is released in cinemas in the UK on 11th August
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For far too long, the trainer community has been dominated by men – think of sneakerheads and chances are you'll picture a hipster male forever on a quest for the freshest kicks. Thankfully, there's an inspiring network of influential women, the International Girl Crew, challenging that notion, with a covetable new range of Nike Cortez Classics that reflects their shared passion for travel, culture and female empowerment. Comprising powerful women each owning different fields, from nail art to filmmaking, the International Girl Crew includes WAH Nails founder Sharmadean Reid, model and muse Paloma Elsesser, filmmaker Grace Ladoja, stylist Camille Garmendia, nail artist Madeline Poole, and writer Phoebe Lovatt.
Having met through mutual friends and similar interests over the past decade, the International Girl Crew may not all live in the same postcode – or even country – but always find time to come together, whether that's via a video call or in real life on a girls' holiday in Jamaica. As a symbol of their bond, wherever they are in the world, they all wear matching necklaces strung with gold numbers. And now Nike has invited them to design a range of Cortez trainers, so we can all be a part of their female power crew too.
Inspired by the classic design of the Cortez, the friends have designed a shoe in three colour palette options: a neutral “Los Angeles” style, a bright “London” style and a clean “New York” style, each with pops of colour on the midsoles, graphics on the foot beds and numbers on the heel.
Sharmadean Reid took to Instagram to share her enthusiasm about working with her best friends on the project, explaining: "So 4 or 5 years ago I started a hashtag #internationalgirlcrew after being introduced to @camillegarmendia by #aaronbondaroff who spent the summer hanging with me and @graceladoja in London. Then we met @mpnails and @palomija then London babe @phoebelovatt moved to LA and then NYC... and we were all christened with the NUMBER NECKLACE as members of the IGC! Throughout all this time there have been many group holidays, FACETIMES, meeting up at weird cities around the world where we happen to all be working etc etc. I could say more mushy sentimental stuff but it's not really necessary, I love these women so much, they've saved me! I don't have many friends and I met @graceladoja when we were 18/19 and we bonded over a pair of rare Oki-Ni pink Adidas sneakers I was wearing. We were girls, a decade ago, in a very male dominated sneaker and skate world and we just became BFFs. Making this shoe is an honour, to work with my best friends, with one of my favourite brands, which has taught me so much about running an innovative company and also representing the city I call my home. 3 shoes, 7 colourways, inspired by LA, NYC and LDN."
The NIKEiD Cortez Classic by International Girl Crew is available globally from 16th August on nike.com/nikeid.
Photo: Courtesy Of NikePhoto: Courtesy Of Nike
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As the conversation around mental health continues online with articles, sharing platforms, communities and hashtags, writer and curator Bryony Stone is highlighting the importance of real life, face-to-face communication too in a new exhibition opening tonight under Waterloo station, titled all in: the mind.
Featuring work by multidisciplinary artists such as Tim Noble, Gary Card, Liam Hodges and Akinola Davies, the exhibition focuses on those working in the creative industries, so each artist has been tasked with examining their own personal relationship with mental health. As a writer and curator, Bryony has worked in the media since she graduated; talking to LOVE magazine about the show she said, “I've been struck by the extreme stress placed on those working in creative fields, whether that's in advertising, fashion, music or the art world — to work faster, harder, better. The pressure is coming from all angles — from agents, clients, bosses and competitors, as well as from peers. It goes without saying that social media is one of the biggest feeders of the comparison culture which I see as directly tied to rising reports of anxiety, depression and mental health issues.”
Click through to see some of the artworks from the show, which runs at House of Vans from Thursday 10th until Sunday 20th August and includes a panel discussion on 17th August. All proceeds go to MIND.
“I wanted to create something that depicted the emotional strain a mental health sufferer may feel in a very literal sense. The creature on the man’s back is choking him. I felt like a shackle around the neck could describe the chokehold mental health problems may have.”
Holly Blakey and Mica Levi, "Wrath"
“After taking residence at Southbank Centre’s Collision Festival, London, Mica Levi and Holly Blakey make a duet of solo guitar and dancer in this gum-chewing, colour-changing portrait of Nandi Bhebhe. Choreographed by Blakey, soundtracked by Levi while directed by both artists collaboratively, it presents a burst of work made from a longer 30-minute piece of choreography seeing Bhebhe alone, eyes to camera, raging on a pile of sand, militant, womanly and full of wrath.”
Tim Noble, "Boy being sick on bird"
“I have a drawing, it hangs above the loo in a house by the sea, a family who recently rented the house felt the need to complain about the drawing. The customer is always right but actually, fuck off! There is a need for adults to take the higher moral ground. This is art, you are in a house that an artist frequents and some people don't always understand that art can look this way and it's real, it's not always pretty and colourful. Things that emerge from the recesses of the mind are unpredictable, that makes it a fiercely fertile pool to draw from.
"My greatest learning curve has come from making mistakes, but ultimately the rewards lay in opening up new ways of thinking.”
Joey Yu, "Crowd"
"'Crowd' is a manifestation of the city. The throng, and the mass of too many voices but no one really listening."
Campbell Addy, "Niijournal II"
"'Niijournal II' explores themes of mental health, sexuality, race and more drawing from my personal experiences, the Niijournal team and contributors. The visual metaphor of the bodies pressed against the perspex symbolises the internal struggle one can face for a number of reasons, from one’s mental state to gender, it can be a very isolating and scary topic. This video was created in response to such things, to create a space where we can discuss, listen and learn.
When creating my work, be it photography, filming or casting, I like to take a personal approach. I'm someone who can't create work that I'm truly proud of if it doesn't directly relate to me in some way. I find one’s own life is a great source for pushing and creating ideas.
Over the past year I have struggled with coming to terms with my own mental health. It's a cliche but my artwork has always been a form of therapy / escape. From my early teens (GCSE art in particular), I would explore themes such as identity and what it meant to be 'me'. As I've matured and progressed with my work I believe I've found a healthy and meaningful way to creating new projects based around areas in my life that I don't feel that adequate to attack on my own."
Joy Miessi, "Curled Out Issues Of Your Own"
“My work is a representation of me and is often revealing of my thoughts, anxieties and personal life. Through honesty in my work I’ve found that many who view it have been able to relate to the feelings and troubles I convey and I hope it shows that speaking out about our truths can help bring awareness to others. I made the piece 'Curled Out Issues Of Your Own' on the subject of mental health from the perspective of a black woman. The long-standing effect of racism and sexism has impacted how I carry myself, what I think of myself and my overall mental health, which is something that I feel is very rarely discussed. Through this piece and being open about mental health, I’d hope that it creates further awareness and discussion.”
Suzannah Pettigrew, "I.C.U"
“'I.C.U' is a video piece made from MRI scans of my brain. I had experienced a few days of blacking out, and aura vision where I couldn’t walk without feeling as if I was going to fall over. I was referred to a neurologist who arranged the MRI. After the results came back as ‘all clear’ he suggested that I begin Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, as he thought the symptoms were due to my ongoing struggle with anxiety, which had been particularly crippling around that time. The video work marks this time period and the beginning of self-reflection and therapy which started the process of reshaping my thinking.”
Margot Bowman, "Sommer Of Hate"
“'Sommer Of Hate' is an animated sci-fi film centred around Summer and her dog Ego that explores how macro-political events affect mental health and the impact that has on our sex and personal lives. The pair leave their home country after an unsettling political shift takes place and they no longer feel welcome. Commissioned as part of 2017 Random Acts, the piece will screen on UK TV this summer.”
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Convictions for rape are notoriously low in the UK – owing to a dearth of evidence (other than 'he said' or 'she said' accounts), a lack of independent witnesses, and a biased focus on the past sexual behaviour of the victim. The situation is so dire that fewer than one in 30 rape victims see their attacker convicted.
You only have to cast your mind back to the Ched Evans retrial, in which the complainant's sexual past was scrutinised in painstaking detail, with Evans eventually acquitted. A former solicitor general said the case set rape trials back by 30 years. Frankly, our criminal justice system is failing rape survivors and has been for a long time.
But there's a glimmer of hope for those looking to bring their attacker to justice. The director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, announced this week that the sexual histories of male defendants will now be scrutinised in rape trials, in a bid to increase the conviction rate.
Jurors will hear more about the suspect's behaviour leading up to the incident and gain a more complete picture of their character, meaning that their previous conduct in relationships and any controlling or coercive behaviour towards other women in the past will be taken into account, the EveningStandard reported. Evidence will be drawn from sources including CCTV footage, social media accounts and witness testimonies about the defendant's behaviour in the hours leading up to the rape.
The long overdue move could help to overcome victim-blaming and prejudice against survivors, and will be particularly valuable in cases where drugs are involved or the victim was too drunk to consent to sex and ergo is not believed by the jury, Saunders believes.
"We are looking at how to prosecute certain types of cases, the more difficult ones. They tend to involve drugs or drink and people who know each other," she told the Standard. “Some of it will be if you have already been in a relationship, understanding the dynamics of coercive and controlling behaviour and presenting cases in a way that doesn’t just look at the individual incident.”
In cases involving alcohol and drugs, there will also be a greater focus on whether the defendant targeted the victim. “If it’s about drink and drugs, in some of them there will have been a targeting element, either by buying drinks or standing back until you pick somebody off,” Saunders added.
Delving into survivors' sexual pasts and previous behaviour with the aim of undermining their credibility has long been a tactic used by those defending alleged rapists. In as many as three in 10 rape trials, women are questioned about their sexual history, according to figures obtained by The Irish Times. In some cases, they're even asked about their birth control methods and whether they own sex toys.
Charities that support rape survivors have welcomed the move, with the Survivors Trust highlighting the fact that victims often feel failed by the criminal justice system when their case results in a not-guilty verdict "despite the fact that the defendant has a history of convictions for similar offences".
Whether or not the change ends up transforming rape trials and upping the conviction rate, at least the spotlight will shift away from victims and onto the person accused of a crime. It's about time.
If you have experienced sexual violence of any kind, please contact Rape Crisis or call 0808 802 9999.
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There's a scene in the new movie Ingrid Goes West where the quirky title character, played by Aubrey Plaza, asks her Batman-obsessed landlord (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) on a date. As they sit across from each other at a luau-themed restaurant, it seems likely — expected, really — that at some point in the scene, the pair's different races will be discussed. Ingrid will make a corny joke in an attempt to be "down," or Dan will mention something about his history with white girls. But then, something surprising happens: Race never comes up. At all, throughout the entire movie. And it's a relief.
While that fact feels notable, perhaps it shouldn't be all that surprising. In the past year, more movies and TV shows have been featuring interracial couples without focusing on their race — or even acknowledging their skin colour at all. There's Ingrid Goes West 's Ingrid and Dan; in the upcoming indie film Patti Cake$, Patti’s (Danielle Macdonald) love interest just so happens to be a Black death metal fan (played by Mamoudou Athie). Jessica Williams’ title character in The Incredible Jessica James dates men of different races, including one portrayed by Chris O'Dowd, and Peter (Tom Holland) had his eyes on the bi-racial Liz (Laura Harrier) in this summer’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. There's also Offred (Elisabeth Moss) and Luke (O. T. Fagbenle) in The Handmaid's Tale, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) and Luke Cage (Mike Colter) in Jessica Jones, and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) on The Walking Dead. This spring's Everything Everything starred Amandla Stenberg opposite Nick Robinson, and audiences were pleasantly surprised when the Beauty And The Beast live-action remake revealed that the human forms of each inanimate couple was mixed-race.
Each project is very different, but they share one thing in common: Depicting interracial love as something that simply exists — an everyday occurrence that is normal, not something that constantly needs to be debated, discussed, or fixated upon whenever it happens on screen. It’s only taken about a century, but Hollywood is finally beginning to not just feature, but normalise love of all kinds. And in a society whose culture often reflects its entertainment, that's incredibly important.
"You see a lot of movies with the same types of character, and one thing [director] Matt Spicer and I had talked about early on was wanting these characters to feel like real people in the world," says Plaza, who stars in and produced Ingrid Goes West. "O'Shea and I saw each other at an event, and there was just something intriguing about him as a person. It was just an idea, until I later found out that he was actually obsessed with Batman in real life. There was a very cosmic kind of thing that happened with him, which shows that sometimes the unexpected casting choice is the greatest."
Spicer adds: "It's just more real. In a weird way, the [entertainment] industry is still catching up to the real world. But Ingrid and Dan just reflect reality in 2017."
Chris O'Dowd and Jessica Williams in Netflix's The Incredible Jessica James.Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
It's about time. In 2015, 17 percent (that’s about one in six) of American newlyweds married someone of a different ethnicity or race, according to this year’s Pew Centre report. Back in 1967 — the same year interracial marriage was deemed legal by the Supreme Court after the Loving v. Virginia case, the story told in last year’s Loving — that number was at just 3 percent. 1967 was also the year that Sidney Portier starred as the Black boyfriend meeting Katharine Hepburn’s white family in the Oscar-winning Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, which hit cinemas exactly six months after the Supreme Court ruling. It was the first movie of its kind after the abandonment of Hollywood’s Hays Code, a production code instated in 1930 to prohibit “sex relationships between the white and black races.”
"The issue with the phrase 'diversity in Hollywood' is that it points to these occurrences on screen as something different or special."
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. In the decades since, however, there have been surprisingly few films featuring main characters in cross-cultural relationships. And when they did happen, the colours of their skin were central story lines: There was 1975’s Mandingo, Hairspray in 1988, Spike Lee’s controversial Jungle Fever in 1991, and Whitney Houston opposite Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard(1992). More arrived in the early aughts, like 2001’s Save The Last Dance, the 2005 Dinner remake Guess Who, with Ashton Kutcher as the white significant other to Zoe Saldana, 2006’s Something New about a Black woman (Sanaa Lathan) dating a white man (Simon Baker), and Lance Gross and America Ferrera were a secretly engaged duo in Our Family Wedding in 2010. On TV, couples like these appeared in the occasional storylines on shows, like Tom and Helen in The Jeffersons, and later soap operas and '90s hits like Ally McBeal, The West Wing, and ER. In all of the above, however, opposite skin colours were a focal point. Extraordinary, not expected.
"The issue with the phrase 'diversity in Hollywood' is that it points to these occurrences on screen as something different or special," says Russell Boast, Vice President of the Casting Society of America. "There's been a kind of glamorisation of diversity, where creators think that having it means it has to be a plot point. But sometimes that can have the opposite effect, making it feel not normal. An episode of a TV show should just feature a person in a wheelchair, not be all about how they got to be in a wheelchair. And sometimes, we just want to watch two people be in love."
America is far behind other cultures in this regard, particularly British TV, where interracial relationships have taken centre stage without much fanfare for years. (See: Love Island, Lovesick, even Love Actually...clearly, the we like our entertainment with love in it.) It's likely this is partly because of some major historical differences: British culture doesn’t deal with the same ramifications of American slavery, and integrated marriage was never illegal here; in fact, mixed-race couples were fairly common as far back as the 1930s .
In the United States, meanwhile, it's taken until the 2010s to begin to see anything somewhat comparable, a wide variety of entertainment with protagonists and love stories of all shades who aren't constantly talking about it. Shondaland’s Grey’s Anatomy was an early game-changer in 2005, and later Scandal ’s Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) and Olivia (Kerry Washington) and many characters on How To Get Away With Murder. 2010's Parenthood brought us Jasmine (Joy Bryant) and Crosby (Dax Shepard), and teen TV was also pretty ahead of the game with the likes of Glee, Teen Wolf, and Pretty Little Liars, as well as superhero shows like Supergirl and The Flash. Now, seeing an unconventional pairing in dramas for all ages is actually becoming almost — almost! — conventional, in everything from NBC's hit This Is Us to Netflix's 13 Reasons Why.
"There's a lot of talk and think pieces about who has the right to tell what story," says Jim Strouse, the writer and director behind Jessica James. "But if I don't want to assume that any of my characters are a certain race, that means I have to have the freedom, as a white man, to write about or for a Black character or person of colour. I just have an extremely important responsibility to do it respectfully and carefully. Otherwise I'll end up with a show like Seinfeld, where you love watching it, but then you're like, where the hell are all of the other kinds of people in New York?"
O. T. Fagbenle and Elisabeth Moss in Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale.Photo: Courtesy of Hulu.
Boast agrees that if we want to see more portrayals like these, the change has to begin behind the camera. Specifically, in casting.
"There are a few things that need to happen: First, more diverse casting directors, because I believe the more diverse people we have filling these roles, the more of a difference we'll see on screen," says Boast. "Second, we need colour-blind casting. As casting directors, there's a lot of pressure to get bankable names to attract audiences, which traditionally has meant two A-List white actors. But we're finally starting to shift toward taking chances on lesser-known names, which gives us more room to shy away from what a traditional romance or storyline looks like. And Hollywood has no choice but to accept that it's working: Just look at Get Out and This Is Us."
Of course, off-screen there are plenty of politics, opinions, and obstacles that come along with being in an interracial relationship, so it's only natural that entertainment still depicts these challenges. The romantic comedy The Big Sick centres on a man (Kumail Nanjiani) choosing between a white girlfriend (Zoe Kazan) and his family’s hopes for an arranged Pakistani marriage; the box office topping horror movie Get Out satirically tackled Black men’s worst fears about dating white women. And Rachel Lindsay, the first Black Bachelorette, often found herself addressing race on her season of the franchise. These plot points are necessary, too, Strouse adds.
"Sometimes, it's important to not avoid race,” he says. “The reality is we’re not in a post-racial world yet, so we do need stories that address those problems head on. But it's also important to have lighthearted entertainment that’s fun and whimsical. Just like we need beautiful projects like Moonlight or Detroit, there should be a place for seeing Chris O'Dowd and Jessica Williams have a good time without debating over their race."
It's refreshing to see pop-culture begin to normalise these stories instead of ostracise, and it looks like things are getting even better. This fall, Julia Roberts’ daughter in the guaranteed-to-be-a-tearjerker Wonder will date a Black student. Next year, David Oyelowo will play opposite Charlize Theron in Gringo, and the Overboard remake will replace Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell with Anna Faris and Eugenio Derbez. In Ava Duvernay's Disney adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time, Meg, played by Storm Reid, is the bi-racial daughter of parents played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Chris Pine.
"It's everyone's duty in this industry to step up to the plate, and we're slowly getting there," says Boast. "But we're not there yet. The day we no longer have to have diversity and inclusion committees and articles is the day we've achieved the dream."
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
We hear more and more about egg freezing these days. Women are delaying having families in favour of careers and lifestyle and, if we're to believe everything, we now have a generation of childless women with dwindling fertilities rushing off to clinics to protect their future chances of having kids.
But egg freezing comes with an emotional and physical price, not to mention it being crushingly expensive. British photographer Juno Calypso and We Folk were commissioned by TOPIC to look at the realities of egg freezing, albeit within Juno's signature darkly comic, otherworldly landscape.
From the initial scaremongering that women are subjected to by the media, to the actual process (you have to inject yourself with hormones three times a day for up to two weeks), to the crushing disappointment when, as happens to more than 50% of cases, it doesn't lead to a child, Juno brings it all to life in "A Girl's Guide To Egg Freezing".
You might recognise Juno's fictional character Joyce, a woman disenchanted by the “laboured construct of femininity”, who was the star of her much-acclaimed "The Honeymoon" series.
When discussing "The Honeymoon" with Refinery29, Juno told us: "All of my work essentially boils down to two things: desire and disappointment. And I like to find humour in the path from one to the other. There’s a certain level of irony in all of my images. An important lesson I’ve learnt along the way is that humour is a powerful tool for women."
Click through to see how Juno has maintained that sentiment throughout these arresting series of photographs.
