Inspired by Instagram and (briefly) banned by Facebook, the 46-year-old’s body-positive series shines a light on women of all shapes and sizes. It all happens with the help of a unique prop ― a mannequin she had in her closet.
“A friend of mine said she would love to flip the bird at society’s standards so we grabbed the mannequin and started shooting,” Busato told The Huffington Post via email. “From there it just evolved as more people came forward asking to be part of it and answering my requests for volunteers.”
The subjects used in the photos are not all professional models, and are mostly locals from Busato’s town in Guelph, which is near Ontario, Canada.The mannequin used in the photos is nicknamed “Lucy” after Lucille Ball. According to Busato, posing with Lucy helps the women loosen up and laugh during the shoot.
The mannequin also helps people share their stories, which Busato says range from body issues to mental and physical health.
“Each person has their own personal story about how they don’t fit the standards expected from society. It’s not just about weight anymore, its about being happy in your own skin,” the photographer told The Huffington Post.
If there’s one thing people ― and women in particular ― take away from the shoot, Busato hopes that it’ll encourage women to come together in support of each other around the globe.
“I really want to show the world that no matter what size, color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, physical/mental limitations or social status; we are all women and all strong enough to get through this together,” Busato said. “I just want women to love themselves unconditionally because we are all beautiful in our own way.”
To see more of her photos, scroll through the slideshow below:
The HuffPost Lifestyle newsletter will make you happier and healthier, one email at a time. Sign up here.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Its current domestic gross is over $160 million, which puts it atop “Jason Bourne,” “Star Trek Beyond,” “X-Men: Apocalypse,” “Trolls,” “Kung Fu Panda 3” and “Ghostbusters.” Unlike those big-budget movies, “Hidden Figures” had a relatively modest production budget of around $25 million.
Much like the movie’s early prospects, the characters (played by Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae) were perceived by their colleagues as underdogs who had to work harder to gain equal footing. To accentuate this feeling of being overlooked, the film’s creators intentionally downplayed the visual “focus” on their lead characters.
As director of photography Mandy Walker explains in this exclusive clip provided to The Huffington Post, she took great care to literally hide the protagonists from the viewers’ eyes at various points in the movie.
Walker’s quote in full:
Because these women were in the background and they were hidden, we decided that there’s a lot of foreground in the images and we selectively used focus and light to direct the viewer’s eye to something that’s maybe not very obvious in the frame.
Theodore Melfi, who directed, wrote and produced “Hidden Figures,” also appears in the clip to give further context to the filmmaking process.
The clip was provided to HuffPost in support of the April 11 release of the movie on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-Ray and DVD.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
function onPlayerReadyVidible(e){‘undefined’!=typeof HPTrack&&HPTrack.Vid.Vidible_track(e)}!function(e,i){if(e.vdb_Player){if(‘object’==typeof commercial_video){var a=”,o=’m.fwsitesection=’+commercial_video.site_and_category;if(a+=o,commercial_video[‘package’]){var c=’&m.fwkeyvalues=sponsorship%3D’+commercial_video[‘package’];a+=c}e.setAttribute(‘vdb_params’,a)}i(e.vdb_Player)}else{var t=arguments.callee;setTimeout(function(){t(e,i)},0)}}(document.getElementById(‘vidible_1’),onPlayerReadyVidible);
On Friday, the latest “Power Rangers” movie will be released in the United States, marking a new, more diverse era in the popular franchise.
The original 1993 series caught some backlash for playing on racial stereotypes ― specifically by having an Asian woman play the “yellow” ranger and a black man play the “black” ranger (who fought in a “hip-hop” style).
But it seems as though the new reboot, directed by Dean Israelite, is seeking to expand the world of the rangers by including a cast that is not only racially diverse but also intersect at other less-represented identities.
The reboot features a strong Asian male lead as the black ranger, a refreshing casting in light of Hollywood’s ongoing issue with positioning Asian men as heroes in mainstream films. In addition to that, the new Power Rangers also include a queer character played by Mexican-American actress Becky G and an autistic character, played by black actor RJ Cyler.
“There was no specific look to what the characters had to look like,” Becky G explained in a recent interview with MTV. “We could be anybody.”
It looks like at least one Hollywood movie has gotten the memo ― diversity isn’t just about filling quotas, but creating characters with truly unique experiences and backgrounds.
From a show with one-dimensional and often stereotypical POC characters the franchise has morphed into a reboot with characters of diverse ethnicities, abilities, and sexual orientations ― proving that together, we really can do anything.
Watch the video above to see how “Power Rangers” has begun to evolve.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
A historic church recently purchased by an avowed white supremacist caught fire and burned to the ground Wednesday in North Dakota, sparking an investigation by fire officials, according to local media reports.
By the time firefighters arrived at the scene of the blaze around 4:25 p.m. on Wednesday, the former Zion Lutheran Church was completely engulfed in flames, one of the firefighters told MyNDNow. The church was unoccupied at the time.
A few years ago, Cobb purchased property in the town of Leith, about 230 miles west of Nome, in hopes of turning it into an “Aryan stronghold,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. He was convicted of terrorizing Leith’s residents after they accused him of patrolling the streets with a gun. He’s now serving four years on probation.
Once the news spread that Cobb had bought the building in Nome, the people there expressed upset and concern. Jerome Jankowski, who lives near the church, said he had heard talk of people threatening to burn it down, but he didn’t think they were serious.
“First of all, it’s a church, so it’s almost sacrilegious,” Jankowski told the Tribune.
Still, he acknowledged that many people didn’t want Cobb there.
“Everyone has some form of prejudice,” Jankowski said, “but this guy is way off the edge and he fell off.”
How the fire started is not yet clear. A state fire marshal is planning to investigate the scene, the Barnes County Sheriff’s Office informed KVRR.
Cobb told WDAY-TV that he thought the fire was “100 percent arson” and he offered a $2,000 reward for any information related to the incident.
The sheriff’s office, reached by The Huffington Post on Thursday, referred questions to the State Fire Marshal’s Office, which declined comment, citing a state code that grants fire investigations confidentiality until the case is closed.
Cobb also made news in 2013 when a DNA test revealed that he is 14 percent Sub-Saharan African. The results were announced to him on a British talk show, and his reaction was, well, priceless.
type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=CHECK OUT THESE RELATED STORIES BELOW: + articlesList=58c188ace4b0d1078ca4c6dd,58c12fd2e4b0d1078ca44359,587a6b5ae4b094e1aa9dc6a8,55ea72ebe4b03784e2760913
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
We all want to feel healthy and strong. And if there is any group of experts who live and breathe that philosophy, it’s fitness trainers and athletes.
Instagram is full of people posting about their wellness habits, but there are a handful of accounts that stand above the rest when it comes to exercise. They contain motivational quotes, fun workouts and inspiring stories that will make you want in on a sweaty, endorphin-fueled lifestyle.
Check out our favorite fitness gurus to follow below:
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
The National Institutes of Health recently announced that it will fund the largest-ever study of African-American cancer survivors. The agency is providing a five-year, $9 million grant for the Detroit Research on Cancer Survivors study, which will look at 5,560 black Americans who have faced the disease and lived.
Research and clinical trials lay the foundation for determining which medical treatments and devices are safe and effective for patients. Health care providers look to those results in setting treatment protocols. If a particular group of individuals has been extensively studied, they have a better chance of receiving effective evidence-based care.
Black Americans have not been extensively studied, and they face worse health outcomes.
Cancer research needs a diversity overhaul
The Detroit study will target lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancers, all of which kill black patients at higher rates than white patients. Black Americans in general are diagnosed with cancer more often than white Americans and at more advanced stages of the disease.
Yet “relatively little research has occurred among African Americans with cancer, and so we do not know how best to tailor care for them,” said Dr. Marshall Chin, a professor of health care ethics at the University of Chicago Medicine who isn’t involved in the new study.
The study will be run by professors Ann Schwartz and Terrance Albrecht, who are affiliated with both the Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University School of Medicine. They will look at a wide variety of issues, from the genetic characteristics of cancerous tumors to lifestyle factors in developing cancer to impediments to treatment.
The goal here is not to find one way to treat cancer in black patients, any more than there is one way to treat cancer in all patients. The lack of research into the diverse African-American population makes it harder for doctors to adjust treatments to meet individual black patients’ needs.
“One-size-fits-all approaches do not work,” Chin stressed.
“This study has the potential to be pathbreaking because it appreciates that people are complex and much more affects outcomes than whether a cancer patient receives Drug A or Drug B,” he said.
Homogenous clinical trials are bigger than cancer
It’s not just cancer research that skews white. For instance, less than 5 percent of participants were black in five of seven “mega-trials” of Type 2 diabetes drugs, according to an article published in Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology in January. Yet black Americans are nearly twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes as white Americans.
“Every time you make the argument for more inclusion, they argue that it’s a matter of cost,” Dr. Gbenga Ogedegbe, of New York University’s Langone Medical Center, previously told HuffPost.
But Ogedegbe said people have to keep pushing for more diverse studies.
“We can’t afford to be reticent when it comes to including a diverse patient population in clinical trials,” he said. “The results and the cost of not doing that is much worse.”
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
French actress Karidja Touré may have first caught your attention in 2015 after the U.S. release of the coming-of-age drama “Girlhood.” Now, she’s back for another coming-of-age movie, but this time she’ll be depicting the life of equestrian Selika Lazevski.
“The Adventures of Selika” is a short film based on the 19th-century equestrian, whom the film’s writer Sybil H. Mair reimagines as an African princess forced to leave her home and find her place in the world.
The movie comes three years after the Cannes Film Festival premiere of “Girlhood,” which earned Touré a nomination for a Cesar Award ― comparable to an Academy Award ― for Most Promising Actress.
Touré’s new role is starkly different from her turn as a lost 16-year-old who befriends a rebellious group of girls to gain a sense of identity in “Girlhood.”
“The Adventures of Selika,” which also stars Jennifer Daley and Luke Elliot, is slated to premiere on April 16, but the platform on which the movie will appear has yet to be publicized, according Shadow and Act. You can check out images from the film on their website.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
That’s why organizations like Dance Theatre of Harlem have always made sure black ballet dancers see themselves on stage. The Huffington Post is exclusively premiering the dance company’s most recent short film titled “High Above,” directed by Daniel Schloss and written by Charlie Sohne, which shows the power representation can have in a young person’s life.
DTH collaborated with India.Arie for the film’s title track, which doubles as the release for the Grammy-award winning artist’s latest single.
In the film, the death of a young black girl’s grandmother inspires her to dance. She sneaks off to a performance, looks up at a gorgeous black dancer on stage, and afterwards the dancer gives the girl her dance shoes. When the girl returns home, she learns about her mother and grandmother’s special bond through ballet.
The film is a promotion for DTH’s annual spring engagement at New York City Center from April 19-22.
Watch “High Above” above.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Eight years ago, RuPaul Charles brought nine relatively unknown drag queens from across America into one workroom for a reality-based competition series best described as a hybrid of “America’s Next Top Model” and “Project Runway.”
No one expected it to become one of the most successful LGBTQ television shows of all time.
On March 24, the ninth season of the Emmy-winning “RuPaul’s Drag Race” franchise debuts ― but this time on a new network, in a new time slot with a new audience. For the first time ever, viewers will watch “Drag Race” on VH1 during primetime on Friday nights instead of Mondays on Logo, the largest exclusively gay network on TV. An encore of the show will still play on Logo every Monday.
When Logo announced the decision, the reaction was both polarizing and revealing of how intimately intertwined “Drag Race” has become with LGBTQ culture. The move not only affects the network and the show’s audience, but also local queer communities that have championed and sustained “Drag Race” from its humble beginnings.
“Drag Race” leaving Logo is monumentally significant for the network, whose relevancy has largely been predicated on the show’s success. But the hub of gay TV is much more than “Drag Race,” with programming encompassing documentaries, feature films, web series and other reality-based content. And now Logo and LGBTQ people everywhere must decide what the future of queer storytelling looks like as “Drag Race” finds itself on a more mainstream network.
The shift from Logo to VH1 speaks to a conversation in the LGBTQ community about visibility in a post-marriage equality world and the importance of safeguarding the queerness of spaces and culture. While there’s apprehension that something will be lost in this transition, both Logo and Ru are encouraged by the opportunity to expand the reach of the show.
While younger generations of viewers might be taken aback by the shifting tides, VH1, Logo and RuPaul share a history and all operate within the same corporate parent company: Viacom. In fact, the Supermodel of The World once hosted his own talk show on VH1 from 1996 to 1998, which helped solidify him as a household name.
“We’ve had a great time at Logo. Logo has been so good for us and allowed us to be ourselves, so in my heart Logo will always be a part of ‘Drag Race,’” RuPaul told The Huffington Post, adding, “I think the move to VH1 really reflects the broadening of our audience.”
Pamela Post, Senior Vice President of Programming and Original Development at Logo, echoes these thoughts from RuPaul and assures viewers that the nature of “Drag Race” won’t be compromised.
“I think as a fan you’ll watch it and you’ll see the context of the show has not changed, the jokes haven’t changed, the point of view has not changed,” Post told The Huffington Post. “I think all of that is very much intact. And that’s what we love about it – it’s point of view and humor and take on the world. And especially RuPaul’s point of view. So I think at the end of the day it’s just about exposing it to a larger group of people and hoping its fan base increases.”
The prospect of “Drag Race” on primetime Friday night TV is certainly exciting for the franchise, but it also presents challenges for queer spaces, like bars and nightclubs, who have built business models around the program.
For Steven McEnrue, the manager of two popular gay bars in Brooklyn, New York, the making over of “Drag Race” into a primetime VH1 show on Friday nights presents a set of challenges to his business. When “Drag Race” aired on Mondays, bars like McEnrue’s organized screenings on a night where foot traffic was typically low and nightlife industry workers, including local drag queens, were usually off. On Friday nights, bars tend to be busy with regular programming already slated.
“[Mondays] felt like a community experience with everybody watching this show and having a really good time,” McEnrue said. “I think it’s a little early to tell but I do think a bit of the magic of coming together on a Monday night might be lost. It’s definitely going to be a completely different dynamic this year in terms of the crowd and how the show is.”
This concern isn’t exclusive to local queer business owners, as former “Drag Race” contestants are already contending with the tension between the show’s ballooning popularity and the desire to preserve what feels precious to the LGBTQ community.
“It’s one of those confusing things that we see online and in our gay bars around the world that as the gay community becomes more mainstream, the need for exclusively gay spaces, be they television networks or brick and mortar gay bars, becomes seemingly less necessary,” season six finalist Courtney Act told HuffPost. “Obviously that’s a great thing because we’re becoming more accepted and more visible, but also at the same time it’s really sad because there is something so important about preserving and celebrating queer spaces and culture.”
Still, Act sees the power in having “Drag Race” become more accessible to a mainstream demographic in a television landscape largely devoid of multidimensional LGBTQ representation. “Drag Race” has always embodied a commitment to celebrating individuality and difference in a world that tells queer kids to conform.
In the words of RuPaul himself…
“Drag challenges the status quo,” RuPaul told HuffPost. “It’s always challenged the matrix – the matrix being ‘choose an identity and stick with it the rest of your life because that’s how we want to sell products to you, so we’ll know who you are and can put you in a box and then sell you beer and shampoo. Well, drag says ‘I’m a shapeshifter, I do whatever the hell I want at any given time.’ And that is very, very political.”
This message has never been more relevant at a time when minorities in America are under attack and the need for diverse representation ― and a commitment to looking out for one another ― is critically important.
Pamela Post also considers the migration of “Drag Race” to VH1 as an example of the allyship that this political moment demands.
“This is a time for allies,” she told HuffPost. “I think that whether you are somebody who is worried about your immigration status, or you’re a person of color who is finding that your life may be treated slightly differently than others, I believe that us as an LGBTQ community … should bond together and try to find some strength at a time that’s very difficult. I don’t tend to get political mixing it with television conversation, but I think inherently Logo has always been part cause and part entertainment.”
Despite the popularized notion that Logo puts its full resources behind reality-based programming like “Drag Race,” “Finding Prince Charming” and the upcoming “Fire Island,” this concept of allyship and commitment to diverse storytelling through a variety of platforms is very much at the heart of the network.
Just last year, Logo launched the Global Ally campaign, which strives to connect people along the spectrum of queer and trans identity around the world through storytelling. “Out of Iraq,” an Emmy-nominated documentary about two men who fall in love in Iraq only to be forced apart, was borne from this campaign alongside short-form videos highlighting queer experiences in places like Uganda and Jamaica.
Logo also centralizes their efforts to uplift stories of the LGBTQ community’s most vulnerable. The web series “Beautiful As I Want To Be,” which aired in 2015, partnered four young trans people with prominent trans leaders in an effort to help them fully express what it means to them to be beautiful and authentic. The network’s upcoming documentary “Strike a Pose” will follow the seven backup dancers from Madonna’s iconic Blonde Ambition tour and examine how their lives have been forever changed. Not to mention, Logo was also home to a seminal series about the lives of black gay men, “Noah’s Arc,” which premiered in 2005, a time when diverse queer stories were rarely told.
So why, despite all of this programming, does the LGBTQ community in 2017 tend to primarily associate Logo with whiteness, abs, debauchery and drag when all of these other stories are within reach?
”We as the queer community have fought so long and struggled to be seen as equal and to be respected in community,” said Courtney Act. “But now when we choose to show ourselves in a light that is bordering on the worst of humanity rather than celebrating our high points, it’s like, ‘Are we there already? Are we ready to show the world that we’re just as trashy and unhinged as the Housewives are?’”
While reality-based programming on Logo is not without merit ― whom among us wasn’t curious about a gay version of “The Bachelor”? ― these types of shows are not necessarily representative of the network’s big picture.
Are we there already? Are we ready to show the world that we’re just as trashy and unhinged as the Housewives are?
“I think all of us should be supporting stories that are enlightening, entertaining and showing the diversity of our community now more than ever,” Rich Ferraro, a former Logo employee and current chief communications officer at GLAAD, told HuffPost. “All too often so many of the diverse queer stories that Logo and other LGBTQ media outlets put out there fly under the radar because it’s not something that white, cis gay men often share over social [media]. But now more than ever we should be standing together … to find the creative ways to showcase those stories that will also hopefully drive positive change.”
Perhaps the cultural fascination and success of these shows over other programming says as much about us as a community as it does Logo as a network.
As Logo moves on to redefine itself outside of a “Drag Race” framework, now is an important time for queer people to ask themselves: what do we actually want to watch on TV? Whose stories do we want elevated? How do we want them to be told? What do we want the world to know about us?
“I don’t ever envision a post-’Drag Race’ world,” Post added. “’Drag Race’ is always going to be a huge part of the Logo line-up and people will still view it on Logo and we will still air it on Logo. At the end of the day I think we are always going to find new boundaries and areas we want to push into… I think that we are always going to find new, interesting and diverse stories and different ways to tell them.”
The desires of LGBTQ people to see themselves on screen have evolved. We are multidimensional people, living complex lives and navigating a multitude of different identities. It’s time that we as a community commit to sharing, engaging with and prioritizing the elevation of diverse, compelling stories that are representative of more than just a white, cis gay ideal. This has to begin not only within Logo but also the community at large through conversations we have with each other ― and what we choose to watch on a Friday night.
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” airs Friday nights at 8:00 PM ET/PT on VH1 with an encore on Logo every Monday.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
The Denison Police Department posted a statement to Facebook on Wednesday describing the case in detail and said 18-year-old Breana Talbott, who is white, confessed to the hoax and has been charged with making a false report.
Denison police say 18 yo Breana Talbott lied about being abducted by 3 black men & raped. She's charged w making false report @FOX4 at 5:30 pic.twitter.com/Zu06YMD1IZ
Talbott was reported missing on March 8 by her then-fiancé Sam Hollingsworth, who told police he found her car in the parking lot of her apartment complex with the driver door open and her phone, keys and a single shoe nearby. Hours later, Talbott stumbled into a local church half-naked and covered in cuts.
“She told witnesses at the church she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted in the woods behind the church,” the police department said. “There were also visible cuts and/or scratches on her body.”
Detectives and police scoured the area for the suspects, who Talbott claimed were “3 black males” wearing ski masks. The events of that evening were all staged and her injuries were self-inflicted, according to the police statement.
Police said they had suspicions about the case “almost from the beginning,” as they were unable to corroborate any of Talbott’s accusations. Medical personnel also reportedly found no evidence that Talbott had been sexually assaulted.
Studies have found that as little as 2 percent of reported rapes are false. The department noted the harmful effect Talbott’s claims had on the entire community.
“This alleged crime as reported by Breana Harmon Talbott made many in the community fearful there were individuals abducting women,” the department wrote on Facebook. “Even though we know the story to be a hoax, there is still potential damage to the reputation of the City of Denison and the Texoma region as many may remember the reported crime but not the outcome.”
“Breana Harmon Talbott’s hoax was also insulting to our community and especially offensive to the African-American community due to her description of the so-called suspects in her hoax,” the post continued. “The anger and hurts caused from such a hoax are difficult and all so unnecessary.”
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
