Stories written by Paula Young Lee

Deeper than awful Asian jokes at the Oscars: Hollywood’s vanilla reflex doesn’t just hurt artists—it’s bad business, too

Asian artists protested offensive Oscars jokes—and the Academy's response shows how far Hollywood has to go

Paula Young Lee Thursday, Mar 17, 2016 2:54 PM UTC 0
Entertainment asian actors

The price of Hollywood whitewashing: How this complex drama about a Latina woman became just another Keanu Reeves cop movie

I watched "Daughter of God," the original film that was mangled beyond recognition into "Exposed"

Paula Young Lee Sunday, Mar 13, 2016 6:00 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Movies, exposed, daughter of god

Leo owes his Oscar to the bear: “The Revenant” told an American story the Academy couldn’t help but devour

"The Revenant" celebrates wrestling with natural resources, brutalizing them into submission & converting to profit

Paula Young Lee Tuesday, Mar 1, 2016 6:34 PM UTC 0
Entertainment 2016 Academy Awards, Oscars

#JusticeForFlint’s radical love: While Oscar’s glamour beckoned, the real artists helped Flint be seen and heard

While performers paid lip service to changing lives, Ava DuVernay, Janelle Monae and Stevie Wonder got to work

Paula Young Lee Monday, Feb 29, 2016 11:58 PM UTC 0
Entertainment #JusticeForFlint

Scalia’s elite hunting pals: Meet St. Hubertus, patron saint of rich guys with guns

The secretive International Order is steeped in the heritage of European nobility, the "royal hunt" and war

Paula Young Lee Friday, Feb 26, 2016 12:00 AM UTC 0
Life

America has a white guy problem: From Donald Trump to #OscarsSoWhite, our “diversity problems” are all connected

It's time we stop treating diversity in Hollywood, journalism, politics and education as separate problems

Paula Young Lee Thursday, Feb 25, 2016 8:33 PM UTC 0
Entertainment #oscarssowhite

A white buddy for Miles Davis: Don Cheadle’s struggle to get “Miles Ahead” financed is absurd — and not surprising

A major star can't get a biopic of a jazz legend funded without inventing a white co-star—Hollywood is a mess

Paula Young Lee Friday, Feb 19, 2016 8:23 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Don Cheadle, Movies, Race, Racism

“Your manuscript is not a good fit”: How “we need diverse books” can move beyond wishful thinking

At least one literary agency is putting out an active Twitter call for diverse pitches—will others follow?

Paula Young Lee Thursday, Feb 18, 2016 4:57 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Books, Publishing, diversity, Race

The science of swooning: We don’t really know why some kisses lead to back kicks, toe curls and weak knees

The world is split in two camps — those who have kicked a single foot up when kissed, and those who haven't

Paula Young Lee Sunday, Feb 14, 2016 8:30 PM UTC 0
Life relationships, Love, Sex

“A little tipsy, dancing naked on her big bed, as adorable as she is sexy”: These script introductions to female characters are terrible and hilarious

A film producer is tweeting the clumsy, absurd first looks at women in scripts — all renamed "JANE"

Paula Young Lee Thursday, Feb 11, 2016 4:09 PM UTC 0
Entertainment screenwriting, Movies, Film

“Drown the bunnies”: Mount St. Mary’s president fires faculty for backlash against his “put a Glock to their heads” freshman retention plan

When universities are run like corporations, is it any wonder when CEO-presidents act with an iron fist?

Paula Young Lee Wednesday, Feb 10, 2016 6:18 PM UTC 0
Life Academia, Higher education

White woman walks ahead: Jessica Chastain starring in a film about Sitting Bull is everything that’s wrong with prestige films

"Woman Walks Ahead" is the latest installation in Hollywood's pathological obsession with white-savior films

Paula Young Lee Wednesday, Feb 10, 2016 12:00 AM UTC 0
Entertainment #oscarssowhite

The three-letter word missing from the Zika virus warnings

Government officials are advising women to "avoid getting pregnant" -- as though men have no say in the matter

Paula Young Lee, DAME Sunday, Feb 7, 2016 12:00 PM UTC 0
Life DAME, Zika, mosquitoes, virus, Brazil

Thanks for nothing, Facebook: #FriendsDay is our latest reminder that curated selves are becoming “more real than real”

“Here are your friends,” the generated #FriendsDay video says — and, as if to warn us: “Well, some of them”

Paula Young Lee Thursday, Feb 4, 2016 8:31 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Facebook, Social Media

“It was like watching home”: “Fresh Off the Boat” makes history with funny and moving Chinese New Year episode

Last night, the Huangs tried to celebrate New Year in 1996 Orlando, to comic and ultimately heartfelt results

Paula Young Lee Wednesday, Feb 3, 2016 5:22 PM UTC 0
Entertainment fresh off the boat, TV

Coldplay’s eat-pray-love India: Their Beyoncé collaboration is even more insidious than cultural appropriation — and it’s not the band’s first time

Just like "Princess of China," "Hymn for the Weekend" is Orientalism—a white guy's fantasy Asia, repackaged & sold

Paula Young Lee Tuesday, Feb 2, 2016 3:50 PM UTC 0
Entertainment coldplay, Beyonce

Paul LePage’s guillotine dream: A warped, bloodthirsty fantasy of justice resurrected for the YouTube age

The Maine governor knows his French history, so he says, but has he forgotten the real lessons of the Terror?

Paula Young Lee Wednesday, Jan 27, 2016 5:00 PM UTC 0
Life Maine Governor Paul LePage

White women of publishing: New survey shows a lack of diversity behind the scenes in book world

Marlon James was right—the industry is overwhelmingly white (and female). Will new initiatives change that?

Paula Young Lee Tuesday, Jan 26, 2016 5:30 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Publishing, diversity, Books

Who is Bill Maher kidding? Blaming “racist Asians” for the all-white acting Oscars might be the most disingenuous response yet

Maher's "I'm just honest!" shtick allows him to toss absurdities about Hollywood and race disguised as truth-bombs

Paula Young Lee Tuesday, Jan 26, 2016 12:00 AM UTC 0
Entertainment Bill Maher, diversity, Racism

Smiling slaves at story time: These picture books show why we need more diversity in publishing, too

Upbeat kids' books that sanitize the horrors of slavery get published—and speak volumes about the industry

Paula Young Lee Monday, Jan 18, 2016 5:00 PM UTC 0
Entertainment #WeNeedDiverseBooks

May the Powerball odds be ever in your favor: Poverty, greed, exploitation and the lottery lessons we refuse to learn

#IfIWonPowerball is trending—but from Shirley Jackson to "The Hunger Games," we know who really loses

Paula Young Lee Thursday, Jan 14, 2016 12:00 AM UTC 0
Entertainment Powerball, Lottery

David Bowie, Elvis and “Blade Runner”: A fan theory to end all fan theories

Maybe the connection between 3 birthdays—two real, one fictional—goes deeper than we thought [UPDATED]

Paula Young Lee Wednesday, Jan 13, 2016 8:46 PM UTC 0
Entertainment David Bowie, Elvis Presley

Meet your online doppelgänger: On the Internet, nobody knows you’re not really trolling Ann Coulter

From digital kidnapping to ID theft to plain old look-alikes, it's never been harder to just be yourself online

Paula Young Lee Monday, Jan 11, 2016 11:59 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Social Media, Mike Rowe

The next “Master of None”: “#Josh,” a dramedy about Haitian-American millennials in Miami coming from Project Greenlight

After the HBO show's Matt Damon diversity debacle, the digital studio taps young black filmmakers for new series

Paula Young Lee Monday, Jan 11, 2016 6:13 PM UTC 0
Entertainment project greenlight, HBO, TV, Movies

A tale of 2 professor firings: Stop handwringing about student activists — university administrators are still very much in charge

FAU found a way to fire reviled "Sandy Hook Truther professor" while Wheaton's getting crushed for dismissing Hawks

Paula Young Lee Friday, Jan 8, 2016 5:17 PM UTC 0
News sandy hook truthers

Keep your man-child antiheroes: The new crush-worthy guy is the quietly competent, grown-up man

There's a bit of wishful thinking in these pop culture sensations, too—that white men can calmly fight a good fight

Paula Young Lee Wednesday, Jan 6, 2016 11:40 PM UTC 0
Entertainment TV, Film, Marvel Universe

5 excellent crowd-pleasing movies you might have missed in 2015

Had your fill of the cineplex last weekend? Settle down at home with these underrated gems [UPDATED]

Paula Young Lee Friday, Jan 1, 2016 11:59 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Movies, aol_on

Hollywood’s despicable whitewashing continues: This bland Keanu Reeves cop thriller started as a diverse, female-centered bilingual drama

The original version was edited so drastically Jamaican-American director Gee Malik Linton is refusing credit

Paula Young Lee Wednesday, Dec 23, 2015 7:48 PM UTC 0
Entertainment exposed, daughter of god

Nic Cage’s dino bones blues: The scientific ethics and international crimes behind the eccentric actor’s latest Hollywood-scale drama

Cage didn't break the law when he bought a dinosaur skull, but it does have to go back to Mongolia—here's why

Paula Young Lee Wednesday, Dec 23, 2015 4:40 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Nicolas Cage, Dinosaur

Yes, Hermione is black: The “Harry Potter” stage sequel finally gets Hogwarts’ overachiever right

Taunted by Draco Malfoy, she always had to be twice as good to be seen as an equal to the other wizards-in-training

Paula Young Lee Monday, Dec 21, 2015 6:27 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Harry Potter

It’s the “clock kid” all over again: A 12-year-old Sikh boy is the latest victim of racist terrorism paranoia

In Dallas, Armaan Singh Sarai spent 3 days in juvenile detention after a classmate said his backpack held a bomb

Paula Young Lee Friday, Dec 18, 2015 9:15 PM UTC 0
News Armaan Singh Sarai, Dallas

Welcome to Trumpland, Maine: What this small city tells us about the new politics of fear

The disconnect between the urbanized imagination and rural realities comes into sharp relief in Lewiston

Paula Young Lee Friday, Dec 11, 2015 12:02 AM UTC 0
Elections Lewiston, Maine, Donald Trump

Twitter’s sunny self-importance: Positive hashtag activism and pop stars only tell part of 2015’s story

The 2015 "Year on Twitter" looks pretty familiar—but some key parts of the Twitter experience are missing

Paula Young Lee Wednesday, Dec 9, 2015 4:04 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Twitter, Social Media

As Maine goes, so goes the nation: Will this small city’s mayoral election predict a Trump victory in 2016?

A once-white working class city now home to Somalis, Lewiston is a place where big debates come in focus [UPDATED]

Paula Young Lee Tuesday, Dec 8, 2015 5:05 PM UTC 0
Elections Lewiston, Maine, election, mayor

Who’s really getting naked at the gym: “There has never been more voyeurism and exhibitionism in the locker room than there is now”

A New York Times article about gym re-designs speaks up for millennial men who want locker rooms with more privacy

Paula Young Lee Friday, Dec 4, 2015 10:04 PM UTC 0
Entertainment New York Times, gyms, Nudity

This is why Trump is winning: “Muslim Killers,” manipulated fear and the other mass shooting we ignored

The same day that 14 were killed in San Bernardino, 4 were shot in Savannah—and that barely made the news VIDEO

Paula Young Lee Thursday, Dec 3, 2015 8:44 PM UTC 0
Media Video, Donald Trump

Robert Dear, “gentle loner”: The New York Times reveals a load of biases in early round of Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood coverage

In separate stories, the Times managed to legitimize smear videos and put Dear's white male victim front and center

Paula Young Lee Monday, Nov 30, 2015 8:46 PM UTC 0
Media robert dear, Planned Parenthood

A field guide to calling bullsh*t: “Politicians are doing their job in creating BS, but they’re not calling each other out for it often enough”

Salon talks to the author of "Bullsh*t: A Lexicon" about the 200+ ways you can call someone out on a "four flusher"

Paula Young Lee Friday, Nov 27, 2015 9:00 PM UTC 0
Entertainment Books, dictionary, vocabulary

Facebook’s safety check: The question of who’s “safe” or “not safe” isn’t so simple

Facebook turned on the "SAFE" function for the Paris attacks and the Nigeria bombings—will Mali be next or not?

Paula Young Lee Friday, Nov 20, 2015 5:04 PM UTC 0
Media Facebook, Terrorism, Social Media

Your #OscarsSoWhite preview: What the blindingly-white Hollywood Reporter actress roundtable says about the 2016 Academy Awards

THR couldn't find a single film actress of color that fit the magazine's standards for its annual roundtable

Paula Young Lee Thursday, Nov 19, 2015 7:07 PM UTC 0
Entertainment The Hollywood Reporter

Paula Young Lee

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