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New York Post
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Parents outraged by trans film for kids at NYC's Museum of Natural History
The Museum of Natural History shocked even liberal Upper West Side parents last week by showcasing an animated film featuring a drag-performing fox and a trans kid with an identity crisis – alongside an exhibit 'about sea animals.' The eight-minute stop-motion animation short titled 'Dragfox' – featuring a 'charismatic' fox in drag voiced by Sir Ian McKellen — played last weekend on a loop inside the august Milstein Hall in the shadow of the famed 94-foot long blue whale. In one scene 11-year-old Sam twirls around with his sister's pink dress, eventually wearing it. The flamboyant fox, 'Ginger Snap,' snatches it and breaks into a drag musical number as the duo embark on a 'magical journey' in the attic. Advertisement 3 The film played on a loop in the museum, surprising parents. Dragfox 'What on Earth is this doing playing in the Natural History Museum? No connection whatsoever to space, the ocean, anything,' blasted one stunned museum-member mom in an online parents group. 'There's a time and place for drag queens but the AMNH isn't it,' added the mom about the museum, which received at least $17 million in government funding in 2024, according to its financial disclosures. The mom was galled that the subject matter 'was intentionally placed in front of us, in cartoon format, with no posted forewarning, in an exhibit about sea animals.' Advertisement The 'family friendly' series, part of the annual Margaret Mead Film Festival, was innocuously called 'Our Friends, The Animals' and described a collection of five 'imaginative' shorts that explore 'the deep and often mysterious connections between humans and animals' told through 'myth, magic and quiet moments of discovery.' De-transitioner Oli London rejected the film's sentiment that transitioning magically brings happiness. 'Children should not be exposed to gender ideology in any format,' said London, who's 35 and detransitioned two years after beginning the grueling process. Advertisement 3 Jacqueline Toboroff called the film 'predatory indoctrination.' Obtained by the New York Post He railed against the animated film aimed at 'targeting' youngsters by including a character with a 'cute, friendly-looking fox . . . encouraging them to become confused with their gender identity and become trans. Children should be off-limits from radical gender ideology.' Parents accused the museum of straying from its mission to 'discover, interpret, and disseminate —through scientific research and education — knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe.' Instead of understanding science, they're 'ignoring' it by 'presenting something that's ideological as scientific fact,' said Natalya Murakhaver, an UWS mom-of-two and documentary filmmaker, who blasted the screening as 'predatory behavior for young, impressionable children. Advertisement 'I think we have activists running the museum who are trying to portray their idea of reality as fact, when it's actually ideological,' she added. But 'Dragfox' director, Lisa Ott, exulted during a 2024 BAFTA award acceptance speech that the short 'celebrates drag queens and trans joy.' The singular goal of the film was to 'have one little queer kid or trans child out there feel a little bit less alone.' The festival is a way to 'step beyond your comfort zone to listen, feel, and see yourself reflected in the stories presented on screen,' insisted Jacqueline Handy, the AMNH Director of Public Programs. It's more insidious than that, said downtown mom of two, Jacqueline Toboroff. Showing a loaded film aimed at kids is 'predatory indoctrination' meant to sow chaos, she said. 3 Parents were surprised the show was showing, on a loop, in an exhibit about sea life. Robert Miller 'It's an attempt to dislodge American traditions,' said the author of 'Supermoms Activated,' claiming that the focus on kid-rich environments – 'libraries, schools and museums' – is an 'intentional effort to groom these kids. 'It's meant to sexually exploit impressionable minds and to mainstream sexual deviance.' Advertisement New York is among the states with the most gender-affirming care, with 1,154 minors in the state who were sex change patients between 2019 and 2023. There's social contagion being artificially created and 'harming a new generation of kids that can't escape this ideology,' according to Maud Maron, a parents-rights activist in NYC running on the Rrepublican ticket for Manhattan district attorney against Alvin Bragg. She added, 'You just don't have a right to push it down New Yorkers' throats in taxpayer-funded institutions.' Advertisement The museum said the festival is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts with support of the 'Office of the Governor,' but Gov. Kathy Hochul's spokesperson insisted the state stopped directly funding the film festival in 2021. 'The state did not allocate funding for this film festival and was not involved in the curation or selection process,' the spokesperson insisted. The arts council budgeted $25,000 in capital grants for the museum this year and that money may have been funneled towards this year's festival, said the rep. AMNH did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Mint
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
Saturday Feeling: Stories and art for the child in you
There are ogres stapled to the floor—and they're the first thing that catch your eye when you enter the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad in Bengaluru, where a huge exhibition, One Hundred Years and Counting, to mark the birth centenary of artist K.G. Subramanyanhas arrived, after a showing in Kolkata. Subramanyan was prolific and versatile—the 200 works, including murals, oils, sketches, watercolours, wooden toys and even swatches of fabric he designed, are a fraction of his oeuvre. But, it's in his books for children that one can read his belief that no one was too young for him or his work. The characters on the floor are similar to the ones in his 1974 book, Our Friends, The Ogres, a playful yet pointed critique of corporate greed and environmental damage at a time when few thought about concepts like solastalgia, and especially not for children. The book surprised me when I happened upon in a museum gift shop a decade ago, and then learned that Subramanyan did a set of 10 screen-printed children's books, all of them attacking big issues with whimsy. It's the kind of work that scores of children's book illustrators are doing today, recognizing that children can't, and don't need to be shielded, from complex ideas and bitter truths. This week, Avantika Bhuyan takes a look at how artists and illustrators are leading the storytelling at many children's publishing imprints, ensuring that there is greater representation of voices, communities, regions and experiences. It's a story about artists using their voice but also emphasizes that children's books aren't just for little people; they open up new perspectives for adults, speak to the child within the grown-up, and remind us of a time when the world held novelty. The cover of the print issue of 'Mint Lounge' dated 3 May 2025, with art from Ogin Nayam's 'When the Sun Sets', published by Pratham Books. There are quite a few stories about storytelling this week. A travel writer tells a tale of nearly getting stuck in Utah's slot canyons, and we have a great read on microdramas, a new digital storytelling sensation that has spawned a multibillion-dollar industry. These vertically-shot microseries run to 50-100 episodes, each just a minute at best. They're terrible, but they're so very addictive—and they're probably not something to watchso pick from our recommendations instead. We're all tired of ads—targeted, random, pop-up, autoplay, or whatever other form they take while we're online. As advertising creeps deeper into digital life, technology geeks, privacy enthusiasts and digital rebels are quietly fighting back. With sophisticated but free-to-use ad blockers and VPN settings, they are shaping a parallel version of the internet—one where users' attention isn't for sale at every blink. Shephali Bhatt meets the people checking out of the ad-verse by installing browser extensions, privacy guards, VPN services. As more people turn to these tech-savvy users for guidance, ad-blocking could move from the margins to the mainstream—and the future of the attention economy may no longer belong to platforms, but to individuals reclaiming control over what gets their time. Read more. Ritu Beri was one of the earliest fashion designers from India to work in Paris—opening and shutting a store, joining a luxury house, having a ramp show—but she doesn't have a string of stores to her name in India. Instead, she's opened an experiential space in Palolem in Goa, where she sells a limited line of her clothing alongside other artists' and designers' works. She also curates meals, shows, talks and performances at her property, Escape. She talks to Pooja Singh about this new stage in her career, and about why she doesn't plan to sell her brand. Read more. There's one smartphone brand that has flown under the radar over the past year, quietly releasing new models with low-key marketing. Going by market data, Motorola, now under the tutelage of Lenovo, is a winner with its mid-range smartphones propelling the company's market share. The Motorola Edge 60 Fusion is one of the new releases, which Sahil Bhalla used the breezy, no-frills smartphone for a few months. Priced from ₹ 22,999 onwards, it has a significantly improved OLED display (with Gorilla Glass 7 protection), a larger battery capacity, increased storage, a refreshed chipset, and faux vegan leather finishes in three colours, making it a solid choice as a good budget smartphone. Performance is good, and only gamers should look elsewhere. Read more. Supper clubs are no longer just about serving regional specialities or homemade sourdough. Home chefs who made a name for their tables during the pandemic are now travelling the globe, mastering cuisines from all corners of the world and serving them in their homes with the touch of intimacy and care that restaurants can't match. Read more. The Champions League final is a while away but all the semi-finalists this year were a surprising mix of teams that worked through their adversities and found their identities over the course of the season. It's been a season that Dutch football legend Ruud Gullit describes as thrilling, since he admires teams that play attacking football. Gullit, who once formed a part of the fearsome attacking trio with Marco Van Basten and Frank Rijkaard, is a staunch advocate of 'Total Football', the flowing, attack-minded, space-exploiting, mode of play. In an exclusive interview with Rudraneil Sengupta, Gullit breaks down the Champions League semifinals, celebrates club identity, attacking football, and discusses the return of football DNA. Read more.
The Guardian
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Turn Me On to Elevation: the seven best films to watch on TV this week
Joy (Bel Powley) and her partner William (Nick Robinson) live in a closed community run by the faintly sinister Our Friends organisation. All of them take pills that dull the emotions and render them 'quite content' with their grey existences. Then one day Joy doesn't take her dose and all the messy stuff of life descends on her. Michael Tyburski's drama, with its echoes of Severance's surreal mundanity, tells its cautionary tale humorously and smartly. Powley is terrific as a woman struggling to find the words to express her rediscovered sensations, and the obvious moral of having to take the bad feelings with the good isn't imposed on the plot but arises naturally from a tender love story. Saturday 8 February, 7.45am, 6.10pm, Sky Cinema Premiere Strange creatures have invaded the planet, killing 95% of humanity, but they won't go above 8,000ft – which is where, three years later, the few survivors now live. Among them is Anthony Mackie's Will, who has to descend below the line in Colorado's Rocky Mountains to find medicine for his sick son. He's joined on his quest by physicist Nina (Morena Baccarin) who is trying to find a way to kill the armour-plated 'giant murder bugs'. With the end-of-days feel of The Last of Us, George Nolfi's sci-fi thriller is a satisfying actioner, sharp and to the point. Out now, Prime Video We do love a heroic failure in this country, and there's none more so than explorer Robert Scott, who set out to be the first to reach the South Pole but was beaten to it by a smarter man in the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. There's a lot of stiff upper lips and frostbitten toes in Charles Frend's fact-based rendering of the tragic tale, with the great John Mills the epitome of gentility and pluck as his expedition tromp heavily through beautiful Technicolor snowscapes and -40C temperatures towards second place. Sunday 9 February, 1.15pm, BBC Two Hammer's 1967 adaptation of the third of Nigel Kneale's celebrated BBC sci-fi dramas is easily their best, gripping and well-acted with pretty decent special effects. Andrew Keir is a thoughtful but twinkly-eyed Quatermass, a rocket scientist intrigued when work on a Central line extension in London digs up weird prehistoric ape skulls next to an unusual, possibly alien craft. Supported by palaeontologists James Donald and Barbara Shelley and butting heads with Julian Glover's blinkered military type, he uncovers an ancient, malevolent secret. Sunday 9 February, 11.50pm, Sky Arts Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion A landmark in British sci-fi cinema, this stunningly designed 1936 drama, written by HG Wells and directed by William Cameron Menzies, mingles despair at our warlike nature with dreams of a technocratic utopia of unstoppable progress. Spanning 1940 to 2036, it follows the fortunes of Everytown, assailed by conflict and descending into feudalism, until hope arrives in the form of an advanced, aerial global power. A prescient, futurist classic. Monday 10 February, 3.15am, Talking Pictures TV Ruben Östlund's satirical fire turns towards the art world in his provocative 2017 comedy drama. Specifically, it is aimed at Claes Bang's Christian, the preening director of a Stockholm modern art gallery, whose spurious concerns for the world's troubles – expressed through the works he promotes – are exposed as a sham when his wallet is stolen. His attempt to get it back sets in train a conflict between his comfortable bourgeois life and the everyday world of homeless people and immigrants that surrounds him. An easy target, perhaps, but it's still fun to witness the unruly takedown. Thursday 13 February, 12.35am, Film4 It's the film that brought Matthew McConaughey to public attention, but Richard Linklater's effortlessly rewarding 1993 Texas high-school drama is very much an ensemble piece. After their last day of class before summer vacation (to the sounds of Alice Cooper's School's Out), next year's seniors – nerds, stoners, jocks et al – subject next year's freshmen to hazing rituals, while cruising around, flirting, indulging in minor vandalism, getting wasted and worrying about their futures. One of the great teen dramas. Friday 14 February, 7.55am, 11.50pm, Sky Cinema Greats
