There’s One Corner Of Hollywood Where Women Are Making Real Progress: Animation

“Women hold half of the leadership positions at the major film animation companies, new research has found. And, of the top 120 animated films over the last dozen years, nearly four in 10 had female producers, which is more than double the number of women who produced live-action films in that time.” (Things don’t look as good for nonwhite women, though.) – The New York Times

One-Dimensional Diversity Isn’t Actually Very Equitable At All

“Over the history of our big and small screens, audiences have been treated to thousands of variations of whiteness. White people have stood in as the face of humanity’s fullness and complexity. We’ve watched white people traverse the boundaries of class, history, sexuality, gender, disease, fame and technology.” Now it’s time for everyone else to get that fullness, complexity, and – The New York Times

The Director Of ‘Hadestown’ Won A Tony And Ripped Into The Reasons She’s The Only Woman Directing On Broadway This Year

It has nothing to do with who is ready to direct, Rachel Chavkin said. “There are so many women who are ready to go. There are so many artists of color who are ready to go. … This is not a pipeline issue. It is a failure of imagination by a field whose job is to imagine the way the world could be.” – The New York Times

Steppenwolf Theatre Brings Back The *Real* First Queer Candidate For President (Sorry, Mayor Pete!)

Back in 1992, the drag queen Joan Jett Blakk ran a campaign (“Putting in the camp, taking out the pain”) for president on the Queer Nation Party line. Now Tina Landau and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney (who also stars) have created a play titled Ms. Blakk for President — “part campaign rally, part nightclub performance, part confessional — and all party!” – American Theatre

Protests Against Drag Queen Story Hour Spread To Brooklyn (Brooklyn?)

Mind you, this wasn’t in Williamsburg or Park Slope; it happened at the library branch in the somewhat remote neighborhood of Gerritsen Beach. Even so, about 40 people protesting the reading by Angel Elektra were met by more than 50 counter-protesters. “One side played church hymns from a loudspeaker, the other played Lady Gaga and Ke$ha from phones.” – Brooklyn Eagle