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Chicago Police says reports of Jussie Smollett attack hoax investigation false

Authorities dispute unconfirmed details

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Jussie Smollett on ‘Good Morning America.’ (Screenshot via YouTube)

Chicago, Illinois- A spokesperson for the Chicago Police told the Los Angeles Blade that reports by Chicago media outlets WLS-TV (ABC7) and WBBM-TV 2 (CBS Local) claiming that police investigators believe actor Jussie Smollett and the non-cooperating witnesses in the alleged attack of Smollett last month “potentially staged the attack,” are false.

Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson reached out to both stations and went on the record stating that “his investigators have no evidence to support their reporting and their supposed CPD sources are uninformed and inaccurate.”

Earlier Thursday afternoon, WBBM-TV, a CBS affiliate reported that sources had told CBS 2 Investigator Brad Edwards that police are investigating whether Smollett and two other persons of interest “potentially staged the attack.”

Similar allegations were made to Chicago’s WLS-TV ABC7, which reported that sources allege the attack was staged because the star was being written off of the show “Empire.” The station also reported that Smollett did not appear for an interview with police earlier in the day.

A spokesperson for Twentieth Century Fox Television and Fox Entertainment, which produces the Chicago based show of which Smollett is a cast member of, released the following statement, disputing the reports; “The idea that Jussie Smollett has been, or would be, written off of EMPIRE is patently ridiculous. He remains a core player on this very successful series and we continue to stand behind him.”

In sit-down interview, which aired Thursday morning on ABC Television’s Good Morning America, Smollett, 36, who is black and openly gay, addressed rumors with ABC News senior journalist Robin Roberts about the incident; “For me, the main thing was the idea that I somehow switched up my story, you know? And that somehow maybe I added a little extra trinket, you know, of the MAGA thing,”

Smollett said. “I didn’t need to add anything like that. They called me a faggot, they called me a nigger. There’s no which way you cut it. I don’t need some MAGA hat as the cherry on top of some racist sundae.”
Family members had told various media outlets earlier that they were confident police would identify and arrest the actor’s attackers.

“Chicago PD has repeatedly informed us that they find Jussie’s account of what happened that night consistent and credible. Superintendent Johnson has been clear from day one that Jussie is a victim. We are continuing to work closely with the Chicago PD and remain confident that they will find Jussie’s attackers and bring them to justice,” the family said.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the news came after a report by CBS 2 Chicago said the police raided the home of two persons of interest in the attack on Wednesday night. The local news outlet reports that both persons of interest are of Nigerian descent and have appeared as extras on the show.

CBS Chicago reporter Charles De Mar tweeted on Thursday that he “asked family why they think police picked the two brothers up for questioning and they replied by saying the men left for Nigeria the day of the attack.”

The Los Angeles Blade was unable to reach representatives for both the ABC7 and CBS2 for comment.

~This is a developing story~

Reporting by The Hollywood Reporter and the staff of the Los Angeles Blade.

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Theater

Second City brings ‘Dance Like There’s Black People Watching’ to D.C.

‘The full spectrum of Blackness and queerness represented’

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Breon Arzell (Photo by Ian McClaren)

‘Dance Like There’s Black People Watching’
Through Dec. 22
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
641 D St., N.W.
$40 – $83
woollymammoth.net

The Second City, Chicago’s famed improv proving ground, makes a timely return to Woolly Mammoth with “Dance Like There’s Black People Watching,” a humor-loaded and sharp show especially tailored to D.C. 

Breon Arzell who’s Black and gay, has been a part of Second City and “Dance Like There’s Black People Watching” since 2022, first as choreographer and now as both cast member and choreographer. He says although the show is highlighting Black culture, it’s geared for everyone. In short, “if you don’t know about [Black culture], learn about it; and if you’re a part of it, come celebrate with us.” 

He adds, “There are some things Black audiences will instantly get and appreciate more. But there’s something for everyone to enjoy. It’s rooted in joy and comedy.” 

Performed by six talented and versatile Black actors, the show consists of sketches derived from improvisation, audience participation improv, monologues, songs, and rap solos. 

As the title suggests, Arzell’s choreography is a vital part of what’s happening on stage, too. The dance (inspired by TV’s “In Living Color” and its unforgettable Fly Girls) peppers the show’s 90 minutes with bursts of backup and transitional moves. 

“Dance Like There’s Black People Watching” was created and premiered in Chicago, and it was “very Chicago,” says Arzell, adding “there were some references that wouldn’t have worked here, so we slotted in some D.C. specific things including political references and there’s a cast member [Julius Shanks II] who’s currently in his senior year at Howard University. He shouts out the school.” 

It’s opening in D.C. at an undeniably hot time, and there’s no guarantee that election results will be settled anytime soon. Arzell says, “We know nothing will be wrapped up neatly with a bow. We have contingency plans depending on how things go and how that might play into the material.” 

Any queer aspects to the show? “Oh, it’s so gay in a lot of ways,” he says without hesitation. “I don’t shy away from queerness at all and I make sure it’s infused in my character work.”

For instance, during songs he changes lyrics, mostly pronouns, and intention. Also, his costuming is gender fluid and close to his preferred real life masc-femme style. 

And his funniest bit? He says it’s his praise dance, “a good old Black church moment. It’s very fun, comes out of nowhere, and audiences love it.”

While based in the Windy City, Arzell, 41, is no stranger to Woolly Mammoth. In both 2022 and 2023, he memorably acted in “Ain’t No Mo’” and “Incendiary,” respectively. 

“I’m an actor first and foremost,” he says. “I was a theater major in college [Miami University in Oxford, Ohio] but choreography sort of just happened to me. I’ve always had an affinity for movement. As a kid growing up in Detroit, it was me dancing in front of the TV doing a little show for company. I was that little chubby Black kid. 

Watching videos when MTV actually was music television, he learned to dance and developed a vision. Now with regard to professional employment, choreography is on par with acting. His “absolute jam” is acting in a show that he’s also choreographed. 

Beyond the comedy and the fun, says Arzell, are the perspective and inclusiveness that come with the work and its troupe of players. 

“As Black people we’re not a monolith; there’s not a specific way to operate as a Black person in this world. And the same goes for queer people. 

“At Woolly, you’ll see the full spectrum of Blackness and queerness represented.”

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Books

New book follows 7 trans kids coping with modern political attacks

Author Nico Lang delivers fine work of journalism

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(Book cover image courtesy Abrams Press)

‘American Teenager’
By Nico Lang
c.2024, Abrams Press
$30/288 pages

In great-grandma’s day, they hooked.

They were high-topped and dainty, too, to show off a tiny, cheeky-but-demure ankle beneath long skirts. These days, though, they Velcro, tie, strap, or you just slip your toes into whatever you put on your feet. You gotta wear your shoes but, as in the new book “American Teenager” by Nico Lang, you wish someone would walk a mile in them first.

Seven-hundred-plus.

That’s how many anti-gay, anti-trans bills were presented to state legislatures around the country last year, many aimed at minors. As if being a teenager isn’t hard enough. With this in mind, Lang shadowed seven trans kids, to find out how they and their families cope with our current political landscape.

Fifteen-year-old South Dakotan Wyatt is in 10th grade. He knows that the lawmakers in his state “will just keep turning up the boil” on trans bills and it makes him physically sick. When Lang asked Wyatt to describe himself, Wyatt couldn’t do it, as if, says Lang, he was “still in transit, not yet arrived.”

Near Birmingham, Rhydian is a good student at the Magic City Acceptance Academy, the only school in the South that specifically welcomes LGBTQ students, and he enjoys the deep love and support of his parents and grandmother. But he’s frustrated: Rhydian’s been waiting for months for top surgery, which has been put on hold for reasons that are political.

Mykah identifies as gender-fluid, Black, and bi-racial and they desperately dream of a future performing career. In Houston, Ruby’s beloved church held a re-naming ceremony for her when she turned 18. Seventeen-year-old trans boy Clint is Muslim, and has managed to avoid scrutiny from his Chicago mosque.

Jack, along with her mother and nonbinary sibling, Augie, were homeless before their mother finally managed to find housing; in the meantime, Jack lost her health care. And in Los Angeles, Kylie has health care, support, friends, and an activist mother.

She has advantages that most trans kids can only wish for – and she knows it.

Acne. Peer pressure. Social media. Being a teen has always been difficult, even without anti-LGBTQ legislation. In this fine work of journalism, author Nico Lang shows how a handful of kids in one group are coping with governmental policies and life in general.

Hint: you can expect the unexpected.

“American Teenager” shows the highs and lows of being a teen with the added stress of politics included – and here, the individuality inside the ordinary is striking and wonderful. Lang is careful to show how these are just typical kids – good-hearted, smart, funny, sarcastic – and it rings throughout each profile how much the discrimination they endure affects their lives and relationships. That’s a clarion call, absolutely, but readers who can see between the lines will also enjoy this book’s humor, it’s compassion, and the sheer joy of meeting decent, thoughtful teens.

Parents will like this book for its candor, and that goes doubly for adults who love a trans kid. Start “American Teenager” and before long, you’ll be hooked.

The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.

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Movies

The queer Catholic appeal of ‘Conclave’

A-list cast delivers powerful take on papal election

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Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci star in ‘Conclave.’ (Image courtesy of Focus Features)

If you are anywhere in the Queer rainbow and you grew up as a Catholic, it’s possible — if not likely — that your relationship with that religious institution might be, to put it mildly, conflicted.

Though there are voices within the church establishment today that endorse official acceptance of LGBTQ people and support their equality, for most of its history that has not been the case. Yet, it has also represented a sort of sanctuary for queer people who could avoid the otherwise socially mandated expectations around sexuality and gender by excluding themselves from the conversation — through ordainment into the service of the church and the convenient vow of celibacy that came with it.

While such a path may not be appealing to most queer spiritual seekers today, the church still looms large in the psyche of those brought up in its traditions, and revelations about the vast record of sexual abuse that has taken place behind its sanctified veil have only complicated things further. That’s one reason why the queer appeal of “Conclave” — the buzzy screen adaptation of Robert Harris’s 2016 novel from director Edward Berger — cannot be denied; perhaps, in some fictionalized story about the inner workings of the church at its highest level, some resolution might be found to the centuries-old struggle between sexuality and religious faith.

Packed into a brisk two-hour running time, it wastes not a single frame in conveying its narrative, which chronicles the election of a new Pope after the sudden death of the old one and explores the labyrinthine politics that underlie that highly secretive process. Tasked by his role as Dean of the College of Cardinals to preside over it all is Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), a stoic thinker whose recent resignation from his position over a crisis of faith was rejected by the late pontiff himself; nevertheless committed to conducting the titular proceedings — and hoping to advance the progressive vision of his church’s future represented by popular candidate Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) — he tackles his responsibilities with a full sense of commitment.

It’s a task that will require all his unbiased wisdom to complete. In direct opposition to Bellini is Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a reactionary traditionalist who wants to return the church to the policies of its ancient past, with more “centrist” candidates Tremblay (John Lithgow) and Adeyami (Lucian Msamati) bringing additional layers of political nuance to the voting process. With the various contenders trying to manipulate the outcome in their favor and an unforeseen influence rising in the form of newly appointed Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz), Lawrence must set aside his worldly concerns and seek the guidance he needs not only from his keen intellect and understanding of human nature, but from the very faith he struggles with, as well.

Constructed like an old-fashioned potboiler, a mystery set in the halls of power and woven through with political intrigue and private ambition, “Conclave” plays like the kind of classic Hollywood “prestige” movie guaranteed to stir liberal sentiments while couching them in a socially aware yet entertaining yarn. Like most dramas set within a religious context, it invites speculation about the “hidden hand” of the Almighty behind the story, providing an entry point for audiences seeking reassurance about their beliefs in the midst of all the skullduggery, and even delivering an ending that allows the devout to remain steadfast to their faith; it blends philosophical and intellectual sophistication into the kind of thriller which, like the stylized “whodunnits” of Agatha Christie, unearths all manner of human corruption behind the pomp and decorum of a fiercely protected status quo as it inexorably works its way to a clever and satisfying finish — shepherded by Lawrence, standing in for the more worldly “master detectives” created by Christie and other authors of her genre thanks to his sharp intellect and shrewd observational skills. As such, it inevitably provides the expected twists, hidden secrets, and clandestine alliances through which the “mystery” will eventually be traced, and while we can’t always see where it’s headed, it steeps us in a comfortable familiarity that feels predictable anyway.

Still, that’s not entirely a bad thing; the sum effect of “Conclave” rises far above its generic structure, and makes it easy to forgive its tendency toward formula-dictated storytelling. That’s partly due to Berger’s direction, which sculpts the movie’s overall impact through its meticulous attention to detail, immersing us in its world with a near-tactile depiction of the rarified Vatican environment — aided immeasurably by the exquisitely moody cinematography of Stéphane Fontaine, who delivers a richly intimate yet tantalizingly dark setting immersed in the kind of deep shadows that seem to invite conspiracy  — while putting an unwavering focus on the internal narrative of its characters and the sometimes murky motives that drive them. It’s also thanks to the screenplay by Peter Straughan, which crafts those characters as much through what they choose not to say as by what they do, while skillfully using them to explore culturally-relevant themes about the corrupting influence of power and the antiquated prejudices that still hold sway within its cloistered walls.

Most of all, however, the film’s ability to grip us and draw us in rests upon its actors, most particularly Fiennes, already an odds-on favorite for this year’s Best Actor Oscar, who gives a career-best performance as Lawrence, turning a character who might easily seem too good to be true into a layered, relatable “Everyman” that has our instinctive loyalty from the first moment we meet him. Tucci, Lithgow, and Msamati all have standout moments, and Diehz shines as the quiet and unassuming Benitez — but it’s Isabella Rossellini who almost walks away with “Conclave” with her largely silent performance as a Vatican nun who says very little but sees and hears everything.

All this A-list quality certainly succeeds in making Berger’s movie into an engaging, intelligent, and visually impressive piece of populist cinema; and even if its twisty-and-interconnected plot developments sometimes stand out as a little too apt to be believable, its strong points far outweigh those mainstream “compromises.” Still, what likely has made “Conclave” into the first must-see title of awards season is more about what is happening offscreen rather than off. Much of the Papal election it portrays reflects hard-to-miss parallels with the real-life presidential election (which, at the time of this writing, had yet to take place), from the sharp divide between progressive ideals and regressive conservatism to the entrenched misogyny, racism, and homophobia that inserts itself into the process everything about this fictional Catholic thriller reminds us of the American political campaigns of 2024. And as for specific relevance for queer audiences, we don’t like spoilers — but we can venture to say that at least a few of the film’s surprise developments have a profound resonance with LGBTQ concerns.

Of course, that might not be enough by itself to add this one to your watchlist; but there’s enough food for thought to be found in it that it is worth your while, no matter what.

 “Conclave” is now playing in theaters.

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