Demonstrators Demand Justice for Polanco, Trawick

I didn’t want to write about “After the Wedding,” the reboot of Susanne Bier’s 2006 Danish film, newly brought to life with an American director and cast, its gender roles flipped, and its settings and plot altered, ... Show more

ltered, though not betrayed. Not because I disliked or was disappointed or angered by the remake. I was surprised by it, caught unaware. It used to be a given that an American version of a foreign film would be flat-footed and devoid of the charms of the original: Americans inevitably revealing our tendency toward the too explicit, the simplistic, the overly sentimental. But this new version wove a spell from start to finish, one I didn’t want to dissect or analyze. I remembered very little about the original film, other than that I’d found it thoughtful and engrossing. Its charismatic star, Mads Mikkelsen, was an actor who always managed to convey intelligence and psychological complexity; I invariably wanted to see a film if he was in it. The rebooted version cast Michelle Williams in his role, an intriguing idea, not only because of the sex change. Williams has had an unusual career of showy roles that polarize (2011’s “My Week With Marilyn”) and are less showy, undervalued perf

Celebrate NYC Black Pride All Weekend

More than 100 people gathered near City Hall on August 15 to convey emotional calls for criminal justice reform and seek justice for Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco and Kawaski Trawick. Folks held a ba... Show more

ll event and a demonstration roughly two months after Polanco, a transgender woman, died in jail at Rikers Island and four months after Trawick, a gay man, was fatally shot by police at his home in the Bronx. After making their voices heard at City Hall, the group then brought their demonstration to One Police Plaza to continue raising awareness about the role of law enforcement in the deaths of LGBTQ folks in the city this year. Comment on this story.

Minnelli at Large

NYC Black Pride is back — and it’s only just beginning. Produced by 2019 Gay City News Impact Award winner Lee Lee Soulja-Simmons, the city’s annual celebration of the black and Latinx LGBTQ community commenced with ... Show more

with a series of events during the week. The festivities are slated to continue throughout the weekend before wrapping up on Sunday with a “Pride at the Beach” event in Coney Island. The wide-ranging events thus far have touched on a variety of themes ranging from music to dance and health. The fifth annual Black Pride Film Festival was held on Monday, August 12, ahead of the Tuesday evening opening night at The Monster. A “Health as a Human Right” panel discussion followed on Wednesday before a Thursday afternoon musical discussion dubbed “Songs for Marsha Again!” Simmons told Gay City News on August 16 that the events, to this point, have been well attended and the organizers are anticipating strong crowds at upcoming festivities throughout the weekend. “The energy has been amazing,” Simmons said. “All of these events have been above my expectations.” Here are NYC Black Pride events on tap this weekend: The 2019 Heritage Awards Ceremony on Friday, August 16 at 5 p.m.: Dozens o

Trump Proposal Targets LGBTQ Employee Rights

Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady,” possibly the greatest Broadway musical, sucked as a film. There I said it. Beyond the notoriety of Audrey Hepburn’s voice being dubbed in the lead role of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle... Show more

oolittle — when she could have sung the entire score charmingly — by the proficiently bland-sounding go-to movie ghost singer, Marni Nixon, the whole project suffers from an over-reverence to the smash hit show, for which producer Jack Warner paid a unprecedented $5 million. Stagy in the extreme and entirely filmed on the Warner Brothers lot, the wonderful music and lavish Cecil Beaton its real entertainment value. The other performances — Stanley Holloway as Alfred Doolittle, Wilfred Hyde-White as linguist Colonel Pickering, and, especially, Rex Harrison’s overdone, charmless, and stale recreation of his stage role as Professor Henry Higgins — are over-drawn and cartoonish, direly lacking in true spontaneity and humanity. But the failing of this three-hour film must be ultimately be laid at the feet of its director, George Cukor. A Hollywood legend himself — especially for the magnificent, career-defining performances he’d drawn from his stars (Jean Harlow and Billie Burke in

LGBTQ Trailblazers Honored at Dominican Day Parade

In a move that advocacy groups say will breed discrimination against the LGBTQ community, religious minorities, and women, the Trump administration on August 14 proposed a new rule giving federal contractors wide berth to... Show more

use religion to justify discrimination in employment. The administration’s proposal represents an about-face from the president’s 2017 vow to maintain the rights of LGBTQ employees and comes roughly two months before the Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether or not LGBTQ employees are protected under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The proposed rule announced by the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs refers to years-old executive orders and Supreme Court decisions to justify expanding the scope of religious freedom in the area of employment. The administration states that the proposed rule “should be constructed to provide the broadest protection of religious exercise permitted by the Constitution and other laws.” To that end, the administration is offering a new interpretation of President Lyndon Johnson’s Executive Order 11246, which required equal opportunity for employment by private sector federal contractors. That orde

Lynaé DePriest, Thank You For Coming Out

The organizers of the Dominican Day Parade paid special tribute to the 50th anniversary of Stonewall and six LGBTQ Dominican-Americans at the 37th annual march on August 11. The annual event on the second Sunday of Augus... Show more

t features tens of thousands of marchers as well as untold numbers of revelers who line Sixth Avenue in Midtown, where folks gather to celebrate Dominican culture in the summer heat. At this year’s parade, there was a unique focus on LGBTQ rights. LGBTQ ambassadors recognized at the August 11 parade were Chanel López, an activist who serves as a transgender community liaison at the city Commission on Human Rights; Elvin García, an out gay former City Council candidate who fell short in his 2017 campaign against homophobic lawmaker Ruben Diaz, Sr.; Samy Nemir-Olivares, who co-founded Queeramis?, which is focused on bolstering representation of LGBTQ people of color in government and advocacy; Deivis Ventura, the first out gay man to run for Congress in the Dominican Republic; activist Genesis Aquino; and beauty consultant Chachita Rubio. An LGBTQ contingent marched together at the parade alongside former Wally Brewster, the out gay former US ambassador to the Dominican Republic, and