Arts & Entertainment
‘Moonlight’ wins best kiss at MTV Movie & TV Awards
Emma Watson, Million Bobby Brown win first gender-neutral acting categories

(Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome. Screenshot via Instagram.)
Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome accepted the award for best kiss for “Moonlight” at the MTV Movie & TV Awards on Sunday night.
“Moonlight” competed in the category against Emma Watson and Dan Stevens in “Beauty and the Beast,” Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard in “Empire,” Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in “La La Land” and Zac Efron and Anna Kendrick in “Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates.”
“I really have to start with saying thank you to my parents,” Jerome, 21, told the crowd. “I love y’all so much. But on a real note I think it is safe to say that it is okay for us young performers, especially us minority performers, to step out of the box. It’s okay for us to step out of the box and do whatever it takes to tell the story and whatever it takes to make the change. This award is for that. It’s for us artists who are out there, who need to do whatever it takes to get people to wake up.”
Sanders, 19, dedicated the award to “the unders” and “the misfits,” acknowledging the gravity of two black, queer characters winning an MTV award.
“This award is bigger than Jharrel and I,” Sanders said. “This represents more than a kiss. This is for those who feel like the unders, the misfits — this represents us. We love y’all and thank y’all.”
Adam Devine hosted the awards ceremony which merged movie and TV categories together for the first time this year. “RuPaul’s Drag Race” won for best reality competition and while RuPaul did not give an acceptance speech on stage, the show’s Instagram posted its thanks.
The awards were also the first to present gender-neutral acting categories in movie and TV. Emma Watson won best actor in a movie and was presented the award by nonbinary actor, Asia Kate Dillon. Dillon, who portrays Taylor Mason on “Billions,” is the first nonbinary actor to play a nonbinary character on a mainstream TV show.
“This is very meaningful to me. Both to be winning the award and to be receiving it from you, Asia [Kate Dillon]. Thank you for educating me in such—in such an inclusive, patient, and loving way,” Watson said in her acceptance speech.
Millie Bobby Brown received the other gender-neutral acting honor with the best actor in a show for her role as Eleven on “Stranger Things.”
“Beauty and the Beast,” the first Disney film to include a gay character, won best movie and “Stranger Things” won the best show category.
The 2026 World Pride March was held on Saturday, Aug. 8 in Amsterdam. Tens of thousands of participants marched from Martin Luther Kingpark to the grounds of the Pride Village at Museumplein.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)








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The weekly drag show “Daddy Issues” was held at Kiki on Wednesday, Aug. 5. Performers included Evry Pleasure, Indiana Bones and Tiara Missou-Sidora.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)









Books
Something’s off about Dad. When is it time to step in?
‘When Memory Fades’ can help when families face dementia
‘When Memory Fades’
By Nathaniel Chin, MD
c.2026, St. Martin’s Essentials
$30/422 pages
Mom called you in a panic the other day.
She’d lost her keys and by the time you arrived to help, she’d found them. In the refrigerator.
These kinds of things keep happening, not often but often enough, and you don’t know quite what to worry about. But in the new book “When Memory Fades” by Nathaniel Chin, MD, you’ll learn about the journey ahead, for both of you.
You can’t remember why you walked into a room. You got lost last week, going to the bank. Popular wisdom says that things like that are normal as we age, but Chin says that’s not true – although the answer may not be a worst-case scenario, either. Yes, memory problems could just be signs of stress, dehydration, or lack of sleep – or is it time to see a doctor?
Chin says maybe, yes.
He was working his way through medical residency when his father, a geriatrician in Madison, Wisc., was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Chin, now a geriatrician, was blindsided, but that diagnosis also changed his life.
Here, he writes about the brain, and how Alzheimer’s and dementia are diagnosed, explaining that dementia has many faces and, depending on a doctor’s evaluation, memory problems might be slowed or improved. He shares his father’s illness with readers, but he also writes about his mother, a steadfast, steady caretaker.
Her story reminds reader-guardians to care for themselves, too.
Know how to talk the talk, so that you can have “a more productive” conversation with your doctor. Understand that there’s nothing “normal” about dementia or Alzheimer’s. Know the statistics – African Americans are affected with dementia twice as much as whites – and know how to lower your risks. Learn here what questions to ask, how to break the news to everyone, and any legal matters that will be important soon. And know how to tend to you.
Says Chin, “The best action you can take is to educate yourself… The more you understand, the better equipped you are to make sound judgments.”
Something’s off about Dad, just a lot of little things that don’t add up. When is it time to step in? “When Memory Fades” can help you decide.
Wise, wide-spread, comprehensive, and compassionately helpful, this is a book you can read and then take it to the doctor with your loved one. It’s a book that makes sense when nothing else does, and its biggest feature is that it smoothly transitions from easy-to-grasp science and charts, to gentle coaching for caregivers. Author Nathaniel Chin, MD writes with storytelling, humility, grace, and experience from both sides of the Alzheimer’s/dementia issue, and his words are reassuring but also urgent. Learn, but don’t wait, he says. Know how to safeguard yourself. See your doctor, and don’t fear testing. Watch for signs of depression. And never, ever stop asking for help.
Read those last seven words, and find “When Memory Fades” now. It’s a book to have on your shelf, whether you’re 45 or 95 because, as you’ll see, dementia happens and knowledge is key.
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