Life deserves to be interesting.
( CNN) Everyone stimulates those go-to-the-gym resolutions at the start of the new year, but Rebel Wilson has been sticking to hers.
( CNN) Anne Hathaway is ready for her family to get even bigger.
( CNN) Britney Spears has left a facility where she had been receiving treatment for undisclosed mental health issues, a source close to the singer tells CNN.
In Shrill, Hulu’s new comedy series, Aidy Bryant’s awakening happens softly.
The six-episode series is loosely based on Lindy West’s 2016 essay collecting Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman ; West is also co-writer and executive producer. Bryant plays Annie Easton, a calendar editor at the Portland-based Weekly Thorn , a stand-in for alt-weekly The Stranger , where West ran. Annie is a people-pleaser, but she’s also trying to assert herself more as a novelist. She’s amiable, even when her flaky hook-up Ryan( Luka Jones) constructs her leave out the back door so as not to embarrass him in front of his roommates. Her roommate and friend Fran( Lolly Adefope) is supportive but calls out her people-pleasing behavior. And having SNL alum Julia Sweeney as Annie’s mom is an inspired selection.
Annie finds empowerment in her writing. Sent to review the lunch buffet at a strip club by her cocky editor Gabe( an underused John Cameron Mitchell ), she instead bases the piece around the women who dancing there. A rogue piece titled” Hello, I’m Fat”( based on a 2011 column West actually wrote) gets positive responses, but trolls also pile on in the comments section.
Though Annie’s battle with trolls isn’t quite as encompassing as West’s was–at least not in merely six episodes–it stimulates for a strong narrative thrust. In one memorable scene, Annie and the paper’s IT person( played by comedian Jo Firestone) look through the awful remarks in an effort to hunt down one particular troll. It’s a moment familiar to many women who have been harassed for having sentiments online, and the two reclaim it to show the absurdity of specific comments.
Shrill is a show about being fat, but that doesn’t overpower. We don’t see dramatic weight-loss transformations or Annie’s aspirations to be thinner, but we do watch the micro-aggressions. The episode “Pool” is the strongest of the six. After slowly letting her inhibitions go over the course of a body-positive pond party only to be dishonor by her fat-phobic boss for missing a run event, Annie returns home and unloads to Fran and another friend. She tells them she’s constantly bombarded with ads telling her how to lose weight, and was told from a young age that being skinny would stimulate her more likable.
” It’s a fucking mind prison, you know ?” Annie says.” That every fucking girl everywhere has been programmed to believe. And I’ve wasted so much hour and energy and money and for what? I’m fat. I’m fucking fat .” The depict also highlights issues that women of a certain weight might not face, like the fact that the morning-after pill was not intended to work for women over 175 pounds.
While Shrill is accommodated from West’s experiences, Bryant isn’t just playing her or a character. She recently told the New York Times that sometimes she has the thought that SNL merely cast her because she is fat, and like her character in Shrill , she fought with her weight grown up. At SXSW on Monday, executive producer Elizabeth Banks said Pitch Perfect served as inspiration for Shrill , to its implementation of dedicating girls a character they are likely not consider onscreen.
” This is a story I’ve always wanted to see on Tv ,” Bryant added.” I never quite felt like I assured myself onscreen .”
If there is a critique of Shrill , it’s that—and I can’t believe I’m going to say this in an era of too much-TV—the series is a little too short. It feels like it’s only getting started, especially after Annie’s in-person confrontation with a troll. I would have liked to see a few of the relationships receive a little more structure, but I was also stoked to sees women who appear a little more like me onscreen.
Still not sure ? Here are the , , the , the you can stream on the service, , anime , and the must-see .
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( CNN) “The Voice” coach Kelly Clarkson not only just won Season 14 of the indicate — she also appears to be winning at weight loss.
( CNN) While “there hasnt” actual evidence that Richard Simmons is “missing, ” that hasn’t stopped the Internet from looking for the fitness guru.
It all began with the recent publication of a New York Daily News story that talked of some of Simmons’ friends saying they have not insured him in the past two years. Simmons’ former masseur and assistant, Mauro Oliveira, told the publication he feared the “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” mogul was being “controlled” by those closest to him.
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Welcome to our new weekly series “Cry of the Week, ” in which we highlight whatever moment constructed us ugly scream on our lounges the most in the past seven days .
This Is Us has never been afraid to take us viewers on an emotional rollercoaster. In fact, I’m convinced that Dan Fogelman and the NBC depicts novelists relish in our tears at this point.
If that wasn’t clear before, it certainly became obvious after this week’s episode, in which we watched Kate( Chrissy Metz) run through a breakdown at fat camp while recollecting emotional obstacles in her life that prevented her from achieving various life goals.
One of those traumatizing moments? Her father Jacks( Milo Ventimiglia) funeral.
Excuse us while we have our own breakdown.
Kate’s emotional journey has always been part of the series, but when we find her let herself go at the weight loss camp one of the most compelling moments in her storyline thus far it is powerful enough to move us to tears in merely two minutes.
As Kate partakes in an emotionally charged workout at camp, her intellect strays down memory lane. In the first flashback, we consider her sitting at a pool, reading a note from her friends saying “We don’t want you to play with us anymore. You embarrass us.”
Are your heartstrings getting pulled? It gets worse.
The show then cuts to a flashback of Kate’s 10 th birthday party, where we watch her goofing around with her daddy, Jack. The two are so adorable, and Kate is so happy.
But suddenly, the flashback jumps to Jack’s other children in their teen years. They’re wearing black and holding hands at Jack’s funeral. Jack, the heart-of-gold patriarch of the family. The loving partner to Rebecca and parent of triplets. Jack, who runs from being an emotionally unavailable drunk to the “perfect guy”( as our reviewer Diane Gordon described him ).
Sadly, we won’t find out how Jack succumbed for quite some time.
Theres a before and after tothis family, Fogelman told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour earlier this month. Before Jack, and after. Theres a hinge in this family, and that will be really interesting to showwhere that hinge was.
We won’t find out until “much later” how the family lost Jack, and it will be an even longer time until spectators assure the moment of Jack’s death.
If you absence patience and are in deep in need of an outlet for feeling more feels there’s a whole Reddit thread dedicated to theories around how Jack might have died. Advising: More tears will definitely is next.
( CNN) Soon after Ali Vincent became the first girl to win NBC’s “The Biggest Loser, ” she went on Oprah Winfrey’s show to say how hard it was to maintain her weight after shedding 112 pounds.
( CNN) Gwyneth Paltrow knows there’s a public perception she’s rather “prim and proper, ” but she’s not as pristine as people might think.
The sum of dedication and effort it takes for people to shed all of those extra pounds is nothing short of unbelievable. But there is one man who stands out to me, and that’s because his narrative is so special.
At his heaviest, Jesse Shand was nearly 700 pounds. At that point, he had pretty much lost all hope that he’d ever get on track. But where reference is posted to an online forum, he found the encouragement he needed from the people he least expected to support him.
