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SEASIDE, Calif. — Mike Gravel, a former U.S. senator from Alaska who read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record and confronted Barack Obama about nuclear weapons during a later presidential run, has died. He was 91.
Gravel, who represented Alaska as a Democrat in the Senate from 1969 to 1981, died Saturday, according to his daughter, Lynne Mosier. Gravel had been living in Seaside, California, and was in failing health, said Theodore W. Johnson, a former aide.
Gravel’s two terms came during tumultuous years for Alaska when construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline was authorized and when Congress was deciding how to settle Alaska Native land claims and whether to classify enormous amounts of federal land as parks, preserves and monuments.
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He had the unenviable position of being an Alaska Democrat when some residents were burning President Jimmy Carter in effigy for his measures to place large sections of public lands in the state under protection from development.
Gravel feuded with Alaska’s other senator, Republican Ted Stevens, on the land matter, preferring to fight Carter’s actions and rejecting Stevens’ advocacy for a compromise.
In the end, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, a compromise that set aside millions of acres for national parks, wildlife refuges and other protected areas. It was one of the last bills Carter signed before leaving office.
Gravel’s Senate tenure also was notable for his anti-war activity. In 1971, he led a one-man filibuster to protest the Vietnam-era draft and he read into the Congressional Record 4,100 pages of the 7,000-page leaked document known as the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department’s history of the country’s early involvement in Vietnam.
Gravel reentered national politics decades after his time in the Senate to twice run for president. Gravel, then 75, and his wife, Whitney, took public transportation in 2006 to announce he was running for president as a Democrat in the 2008 election ultimately won by Obama.
He launched his quest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination as a critic of the Iraq war.
“I believe America is doing harm every day our troops remain in Iraq — harm to ourselves and to the prospects for peace in the world,” Gravel said in 2006. He hitched his campaign to an effort that would give all policy decisions to the people through a direct vote, including health care reform and declarations of war.
Gravel garnered attention for his fiery comments at Democratic forums.
In one 2007 debate, the issue of the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Iran came up, and Gravel confronted then-Sen. Obama. “Tell me, Barack, who do you want to nuke?” Gravel said. Obama replied: “I’m not planning to nuke anybody right now, Mike.”
Gravel then ran as a Libertarian candidate after he was excluded from later Democratic debates.
In an email to supporters, he said the Democratic Party “no longer represents my vision for our great country.” “It is a party that continues to sustain war, the military-industrial complex and imperialism — all of which I find anathema to my views,” he said.
He failed to get the Libertarian nomination.
Gravel briefly ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. He again criticized American wars and vowed to slash military spending. His last campaign was notable in that both his campaign manager and chief of staff were just 18 at the time of his short-lived candidacy.
“There was never any … plan that he would do anything more than participate in the debates. He didn’t plan to campaign, but he wanted to get his ideas before a larger audience,” Johnson said.
Gravel failed to qualify for the debates. He endorsed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the contest eventually won by now-President Joe Biden.
Gravel was born Maurice Robert Gravel in Springfield, Massachusetts, on May 13, 1930.
In Alaska, he served as a state representative, including a stint as House speaker, in the mid-1960s.
He won his first Senate term after defeating incumbent Sen. Ernest Gruening, a former territorial governor, in the 1968 Democratic primary.
Gravel served two terms until he was defeated in the 1980 Democratic primary by Gruening’s grandson, Clark Gruening, who lost the election to Republican Frank Murkowski.
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WIMBLEDON, England — Serena Williams said she will not go to the Tokyo Olympics, but did not want to say why during her pre-Wimbledon video conference with reporters Sunday.
“I’m actually not on the Olympic list. … Not that I’m aware of. If so, then I shouldn’t be on it,” Williams said.
The 39-year-old Williams has won four gold medals at past Summer Games for the United States: in both singles and doubles at the 2012 London Olympics — which held the tennis competition at the All England Club — and in doubles at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and 2008 Beijing Olympics.
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All of her doubles golds were won with her older sister, Venus, as her partner.
At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, Serena Williams lost in the third round of singles to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine and the siblings were beaten in the first round of doubles. Before that, they had been 15-0 as an Olympic doubles team.
“There’s a lot of reasons that I made my Olympic decision,” Williams said Sunday, the day before the start of main-draw action at Wimbledon, where she will try to collect her 24th Grand Slam singles title. “I don’t really want to — I don’t feel like going into them today. Maybe another day. Sorry.”
Asked what it will be like to sit out the Summer Games, Williams replied: “I have not thought about it. In the past, it’s been a wonderful place for me. I really haven’t thought about it, so I’m going to keep not thinking about it.”
Other top tennis players such as Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem also have said they’ll skip the trip to Japan, where the Olympics open on July 23, a year after being postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
NAIROBI, Kenya — The United States estimates that up to 900,000 people in Ethiopia’s Tigray region now face famine conditions amid a deadly conflict, even as the prime minister says there is “no hunger” there.
The hunger crisis in Tigray is the world’s worst in a decade, and the new famine findings are “terrifying,” the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Samantha Power, said Friday, adding that millions more people are at risk.
The new estimate more than doubles the warning issued earlier this month by the United Nations and aid groups that more than 350,000 people face famine conditions in Tigray.
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Even as scattered reports emerge of people starving to death, the real number of people facing famine conditions is unknown because active fighting and access restrictions keep aid workers from reaching all parts of the region of 6 million people.
“Conditions will worsen in the coming months, particularly as Tigray enters the July-to-September lean season, unless humanitarian assistance reaches the populations most in need,” the new USAID analysis says.
This is forced starvation, Tigray residents and some observers have said. Witnesses have described being blocked by Ethiopian soldiers, backed by soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, from planting their fields or having their crops looted or burned since the conflict erupted in November.
Ethiopia’s government says it has delivered food aid to millions of people in Tigray even as its troops pursue the region’s former leaders after political tensions exploded into war.
But Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2019, in an interview aired this week with a state-affiliated network expressed concern that outside aid to Tigray might end up supporting the Tigray fighters, recalling a similar situation during Ethiopia’s devastating famine in the 1980s. Such a situation can’t happen again, he said.
“There is no hunger in Tigray,” the prime minister told the BBC this week.
“This is false,” Power’s tweet said Friday.
The new famine warning adds to pressure on Ethiopia’s government for a cease-fire, especially after an Ethiopian military airstrike this week on a busy market in Tigray killed at least 64 people and the aid group Doctors Without Borders on Friday said three staffers had been murdered in the region.
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I played Milkha Singh—the Indian sporting legend who died on June 18 of COVID-19 complications at age 91—in the 2013 biopic Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. (The title translates to Run Milkha Run.) Singh was a child of partition, and who came from poverty, but he had a lot of faith in himself and the belief that if you work hard, you will be remembered. That, to me, is his legacy.
Back in my school days, I remember how my physical education teacher would often point to Singh as an example when we would slack off on our training. Many of us were told that growing up: if you want to be successful in sports, you have to train like this guy.
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And the first time we met was at a running track in Mumbai where I was training for the film. Singh had spent time serving in the army before his athletic career; I expected him to be concise and terse in his demeanor. But he quickly put me at ease. He arrived dressed in a tracksuit, and told me: “Let’s not stand here and talk, let’s jog.” You can’t be stiff when you’re running; you have to relax. There was an electric energy; once young athletes on the field realized he was in their presence, they all rushed to touch his feet as a sign of respect.
Singh—or the “Flying Sikh,” as he was widely known and beloved— came into the spotlight at a time when India was still creating an identity for itself as a nation. He became the first Indian athlete to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in 1958.He represented India in track and field in three Olympics, and narrowly missed out on a bronze medal at the 1960 Games in Rome. His performance set an Indian national record that lasted for nearly 40 years, although his inability to secure an Olympic medalweighed heavily on himeven decades later.
As a child, Singh witnessed the deaths of his parents and siblings during India’s violent partition in 1947. It would have been totally understandable for Singh to feel anger, betrayal and resentment towards Pakistan over the killing of his family. It can take more than a lifetime to get over that sort of trauma, but he somehow chose to make peace with it; despite everything, he chose love as a guiding force.And he continued to represent healing and forgiveness at a time when India and Pakistan still struggle with issues related to caste, religion and race.When Singh talked about partition more recently he would emphasize that people aren’t inherently bad, circumstances are. Hewould later say, “whenever I ran, India and Pakistan both ran with me.”
I remember exactly what Singh told me when I asked what he wanted me to convey inBhaag Milkha Bhaag: “I want everyone to know that Milkha Singh worked harder than everybody else and that’s why he became Milkha Singh.” That became my driving force for doing the film—to work harder than I’ve ever worked before to try and embody his spirit. His dream was always for an Indian to win an Olympic medal in track and field. Hopefully his legacy will inspire others to make that dream a reality.
—As told to Sanya Mansoor
A version of this story appears in the July 05, 2021 issue of TIME.
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Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani unveiled an ambitious push into clean energy involving 750 billion rupees ($10.1 billion) of investment over three years, marking a new pivot for one of the world’s biggest fossil-fuel billionaires.
Reliance Industries Ltd., which gets 60% of its revenue from oil refining and petrochemicals, plans to spend 600 billion rupees on four “giga factories” to make solar modules, hydrogen, fuel cells and to build a battery grid to store electricity. An additional 150 billion rupees will be invested in value chain and other partnerships, Asia’s richest man told shareholders on Thursday.
The move toward green by the Mumbai-based giant, which reported an annual revenue of $63 billion, offers a glimpse of the new order awaiting some of the world’s major fossil-fuel producers. Global giants such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and TotalEnergies SE have been under pressure to pare their carbon footprint, as governments, investors and consumers join to fight climate change and global warming.
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Speaking at the company’s virtual annual meeting, Ambani gave scant details of how he would execute the plan. He was ranked No. 4 among global fossil-fuel billionaires by Bloomberg Green last year. The $10 billion in green investment over three years compares with a Fitch Ratings’ estimate—published Wednesday—of $7.4 billion in annual average capital expenditure by the Reliance group through March 2025.
Shares of the company fell 2.4% as of 12:41 p.m. in Mumbai on Friday, set for the worst week since January.
“Reliance is branching out into completely new businesses,” said Horace Chan, an energy analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “That raises concerns whether the investments could generate acceptable return and payback period, given the time to acquire technology know-how and seek strategic partners.”
Ambani isn’t entirely turning his back on his legacy oil and petrochemicals business. On Thursday, he said that a delayed plan to bring Saudi Arabian Oil Co. as an investor in the energy division — announced two years ago — will be finalized this year. He didn’t elaborate. In a move to reassure investors, he also said Aramco Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance.
Aggressive Targets
The proposed green transformation aligns with the priorities of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has been debating aggressive climate targets that would cut net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by mid-century, a decade before China. Though fellow tycoon Gautam Adani, who built a coal-centered conglomerate of mines, ports and power plants, is already pursuing a similar path expanding his presence in wind and solar energy, Ambani’s plans are more ambitious in scope.
“The world is entering a new energy era, which is going to be highly disruptive,” said Ambani, 64. “The age of fossil fuels, which powered economic growth globally for nearly three centuries, cannot continue much longer. The huge quantities of carbon it has emitted into the environment have endangered life on Earth.”
One of Reliance’s “giga factories” will manufacture solar modules, enabling 100 gigawatts of solar energy by 2030, including on rooftop installations in villages across the country; the second involves large-scale grid batteries to store electricity, for which Reliance will collaborate with global leaders on the technology; and, the third will build and install electrolysers for separating green hydrogen from water.
Fuel Cells
“Is this doable from a standing start in nine years? It’s a stretch, it’s not impossible,” said Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “There’s an element of wanting to align with the Indian government and profit in the process. Don’t forget they’ve seen Adani make a lot of money in this. It’s not altruism.”
The fourth factory would be for fuel cells, which use oxygen from the air and hydrogen to generate electricity—a technology that’s being promoted by carmakers including Hyundai Motor Co. but famously dismissed as “mind-bogglingly stupid” by Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk.
The announcement comes the year after India’s most valuable company raised more than $30 billion selling stakes in its technology and retail units, and through a sale of shares to existing investors. Reliance brought on board Silicon Valley giants such as Google and Facebook Inc. to help grow its digital and e-commerce footprint in a $1 trillion retail market of more than 1.3 billion people.
The investment inflows, which Ambani called “vote of confidence” in his businesses, have helped Reliance’s stock rally more than 90% since the beginning of April 2020. Ambani’s net worth is about $82 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.
Adani Plans
The Adani-led group is also raising its game in clean energy goals. Adani Green Energy Ltd. agreed last month to buy SoftBank Group Corp.’s $3.5 billion renewable power business in India, in a bid to achieve its goal of having 25 gigawatts of renewable power capacity by 2025. The green focus has led to a share rally with Adani Green jumping more than 580% and Adani Total Gas Ltd.—a joint venture with TotalEnergies—by 670% since the beginning of last year.
Reliance last year set itself a target of becoming a net-zero carbon company by 2035 – a timeline shorter than the self-imposed 2050 cut-off of many of its global peers including BP Plc. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Ambani’s group bought its first cargo of carbon-neutral crude oil in February and said it was looking for more such partnerships.
India’s government plans to expand its renewable energy capacity nearly fivefold to 450 gigawatts by 2030, as the nation aims to reduce its dependence on coal.
“Reliance’s strategy on energy, data and consumer will ensure the company continues to grow sustainably bucking all cyclical trends,” said Sunil Chandiramani, chief executive officer at Nyka Advisory Services. However, “it will need to navigate challenges of technology innovation, talent acquisition, investor expectations and global turmoil,” he said.
—With assistance from P R Sanjai, Ashutosh Joshi, Bhuma Shrivastava, Krystal Chia and David Stringer.
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A’Ziah “Zola” King is well aware that her storytelling is exceptional. For the uninitiated, a brief summary: in 2015, at the age of 19, Zola chronicled a (mostly) true tale of epic proportions in a 148-tweet thread that began with a blossoming friendship and a road trip to a strip club in Florida and ended in a shootout.
The thread, compelling in its easy humor and wit yet ultimately chilling in the harsh realities it depicted (among them, sex trafficking and gun violence), captivated the Internet and was subsequently dubbed #TheStory online, going viral before going viral was a commonplace occurrence. Zola’s legacy online is significant—her grand tweet thread is largely credited with inspiring Twitter to create official Twitter threads, an easy way to link tweets together for more comprehensive storytelling, while her brief, cheeky turns-of-phrase, meted out in the limited characters of a tweet (“vibing over our hoe-ism” and “pussy is worth thousands”) quickly became Internet shorthand for an audience that included the likes of Jackée Harry and the poet Saeed Jones.
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Within weeks, Zola’s dexterous way with words online had inspired a legion of followers—and resulted in offers for adaptations off of social media—chief among them, a feature film deal with James Franco, which Zola accepted. In 2017, however, Franco left the project and director Janicza Bravo took the helm, co-writing the script alongside playwright Jeremy O. Harris. Under Bravo’s direction, Zola became an executive producer and close collaborator on the film, ensuring that the essence and spirit of her original tweet thread remained an integral part of the movie—a relative rarity when Hollywood adapts a real-life story.
The result is a film as thrilling and vulnerable as Zola’s original thread, astounding in its ability to conjure both laughs and horror, to tell a tale of friendship and betrayal, sex work and survival with care, nuance and honesty. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Zola is also a trailblazer in this respect: not only has she retained control over her narrative with this adaptation, she’s arguably one of the first to have adapted her Twitter presence for the big screen.
Though her life has changed considerably since 2015, when she first tweeted out her thread, Zola knows there are only bigger things to come. Ahead of the film’s release on June 30, Zola spoke with TIME about how she uses Twitter now, her writing, and why she’s working to break stereotypes around sex work.
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TIME: You wrote your 148-tweet thread in 2015 and now, six years later, it’s a film. And of course it was supposed to come out last year. What was it like to have to wait that long with all that anticipation?
A’Ziah King: I was anxious. We were so ready for it to finally come out so everyone could see it. It was like a gut punch for a minute—to be so ready for something and then overnight, everything got pushed back a year. At first, I was a little worried and kind of had doubt about it. But I think it worked in our favor, because it built the anticipation back up all over again. I think everyone was ready with this.
Your Twitter bio says, “I invented threads.”Now people write threads that go viral all the time. How has your relationship to the Internet and to social media changed since you wrote the thread that changed everything?
It’s kind of like a good and a bad thing. Because now people are more invested in the things I say online and analyze everything, which they did sometimes before. But now they’re dramatic with it! But I still use the internet the same way I did. And I use it for work purposes. It’s all the same besides the fact that there are a few more people watching. I still use it to vent, I use it to express myself, I’m on OnlyFans with it.
Do you think just being a person online has changed?In the early days of Twitter, it was a place where you could just pop off or be funny. And now, people will search your tweets or they’re trying to go viral.
That’s what I mean—they’re so much more dramatic with it. Because before you could really be unfiltered and just exist, really, especially on Twitter. And now you kind of have to watch what you say, and really be mindful of how certain people are going to interpret things. And Twitter was not about that in the beginning.
You’re also the mother of two daughters. Do you have any thoughts on whether you’d want them to be online as they get older?
I haven’t really thought about it. I don’t think I would mind—I’ve kept my youngest offline for just personal purposes lately, because with my oldest, people got really invested in things that I’ll post online and they aren’t always great. I learned my lesson there. So I’ve kept her specifically off of the Internet. But when they get older, I wouldn’t mind. Like I said, I use it as a tool to express myself and I found a sense of community on the Internet that I didn’t have in real life.
On both Twitter and with film adaptations, ownership and intellectual property are huge issues. How did you ensure that you were rightfully credited?
Originally, when [James] Franco was directing, he really wanted to make sure that I got that the credit I deserved. So in the beginning, the tone was kind of set. When he ended up stepping down and then A24 and Janicza [Bravo] came into the picture, we already had that foundation and Janicza just fought for it a bit more. When Janicza came, that’s when the EP credit came about. This was my first time, so I didn’t know the technicalities of it. I didn’t know what that was! But since day one, I kind of knew what I was worth, just based off of all of the conversations I was having. I already knew and wouldn’t have accepted anything less and then when Janicza came on, she really fought for me.
What was it like to have this kind of role on the film?
Janicza really wanted to make sure that she did it justice and kept it as authentic as possible. We began talking on the phone all the time. I didn’t end up actually going to the set because I was pregnant. So she’d FaceTime me and walk me through everything she was thinking. Same thing with Taylour [Paige]—she asked for my blessing before even moving forward. So Janicza, she’d send me pictures and be like, ‘Is this the way that your living room looked like in 2015?’ And I’m like, ‘Yep, feels pretty accurate.’ Taylour and I got close, on a personal level, but she really wanted to do it justice. She could really get inside my head, so to speak.
How important was it to you that the movie retained the spirit of your story?
That was the main thing for me. Because, you know, we already have a lot of misrepresentation when it comes to sex work. It’s either a bit too glamorized or a bit too dehumanized. So I think that keeping it accurate to my actual experience was the most necessary thing. These experiences are taboo still, but it’s such a norm, this is something that could happen to anyone at any time. I wanted it to be a proper representation for just Black women in general—for sex workers, for Black sex workers. I really wanted it to represent us in the way that it really goes down.
I thought there was so much care given to the story and it really offered a different perspective on dancing and sex work, which we don’t always see given that kind of consideration in films. With this, do you feel like you’re in a position to break stereotypes around sex work?
I do and I’ve kind of always felt a sense of responsibility to properly represent that. And it’s mostly because I’m so comfortable in my sexuality. Even working in sex work, I was very sure of myself and sure of the reasons why. So I think it’s important for me to represent those girls, the girls that come from a good background and it’s not like they’ve been traumatized or that sex work is the last resort. It’s really a lifestyle and a certain confidence that comes with it. It’s important for me to represent that side of it.
I remember there was a tweet after your thread had gone viral where you had corrected director Ava DuVernay for making an assumption about where you had grown up because of your line of work. What’s the biggest misconception that you would want to set the record straight on?
The fact that I was led into sex work through trauma is totally, totally not true. Like I said, I was always confident in in my sexuality and myself. I remember in like ninth grade, they were like, ‘What are you going to do when you graduate?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna take a couple years off and be a stripper.’ And they were like, ‘What?’ And I was like, ‘It just looks fun. I’m gonna try it out.’ And that’s just always been me, so I would like to clear that up. And then ,[the assumption] that I’ve come from the hood—I don’t know why everyone assumes that! I just said the other day, my aesthetic is not hood. It’s not ghetto. I’m just a Black girl. I don’t really like that. I don’t know where that comes from.
You’re arguably the first author to have the a big screen adaptation of something that’s happened on Twitter. What do you make of that?
That part is crazy to me. I’m sure I wasn’t the very first to tell a story on Twitter. But I think now with this, we’ve kind of set the bar. So anyone that comes after me, I think they now know that it’s very much possible. And it’s very much possible to keep agency over your voice even after sharing your stories. I think there will be another and I’m happy about that.
Do you ever feel like people underestimated you or like your skills as a writer since your story originated on Twitter?
Absolutely. At first I was a little bothered because it almost seemed as if the story, the tweets in themselves, weren’t taken seriously until they were in print form, in Rolling Stone. People were entertained and they were all talking about it, but I feel like it didn’t become a real thing to most people until it was written in that form. And then for a minute, it became like, Zola, the story based off of Rolling Stone article, and it’s like, no, the Rolling Stone article based off the Zola story on Twitter. I always feel the need to correct it. We got to really credit the source here.
I think it definitely brings up a larger issue of whose voices we legitimize, especially when they’re telling stories.
And that’s what it was—it’s like it wasn’t the legitimate until it was rewritten by a white man in a very, very big place. And I was just like, ‘I guess? I mean, sure.’ But it was pretty legit when you were following every tweet and engaging immediately. I feel like that was a bit more legit.
Well, all the responses were happening in real time!
Right, everyone got to really interact with it! I think that’s another thing that makes it such a big deal. And so close to everyone’s hearts, because they remember really being a part. It’s like they’ve been on this journey too. Everyone remembers where they were and what they said. And I think that makes it a moment.
Do you have any more plans for writing, both on and off Twitter?
I would love to. I’m not necessarily, I don’t think, a playwright. But I do really enjoy writing. And I have a lot of experiences that I think are worth sharing. So I would definitely love to continue writing in some way or producing in some way. That is the goal. I guess I’m good at it!
I would love to know what your hopes are for your life after Zola is out in the world.
I’m one of those people, I take it a day at a time. So I don’t have too many plans set in stone. However, I am willing to continue on this career path. I mean, I have the content. I have the talent. I have the tribe, so I’m hoping that I continue writing in some way. I’m just really glad that my authentic personality is the reason why this happened. Because at times, I would feel a little a little ashamed or feel I had to water myself down to really be in certain spaces. And so it’s really touching for me to be here strictly just off doing what I always do, which is being myself and sharing my experiences so candidly with people who I consider my community and I’m really happy that my community was with me on this journey.
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The stress of being unable to conceive a child is a world of anxiety and disappointment unto itself. The time-honored ritual of peeing on the stick, only to be brought down by the sight of that sad, solitary red line; the crushing disappointment of failed IVF treatments: if you’ve been through it, or if you’ve been close to anyone who has, you know it can do a number on your brain. As the young aspiring mother played by Ilana Glazer says in False Positive, the pregnancy horror-drama Glazer co-wrote with director John Lee, “As a woman, this is the one thing I’m supposed to be able to do, and I can’t do it.”
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Glazer’s Lucy, an ambitious New York advertising executive, is of course wrong about a woman’s having just one central capability. But in her mind, jangled after yet another negative at-home pregnancy test, her inability to conceive feels like an affront to her selfhood. Her husband, Adrian (Justin Theroux), a typically sure-of-himself surgeon, has been trying to persuade her to see a fertility expert who also happens to be his mentor. Lucy reluctantly agrees. And sure enough, thanks to the scientific miracle of intrauterine insemination—abetted by suave, smiling Dr. Hindle (Pierce Brosnan), the man wielding the all-powerful syringe—Lucy finally becomes pregnant.
HULU—2021 HuluPierce Brosnan plays a suave but vaguely unsettling fertility doctor in ‘False Positive’
There’s a complication, one that Dr. Hindle assures her is easily solved. But the solution involves a serious decision on the couple’s part. Lucy and Adrian see this quandary differently, and Lucy feels pressured, though she ultimately makes the choice that feels right to her. Dr. Hindle abides by her wishes, and Lucy’s pregnancy continues relatively uneventfully—though she senses that behind Dr. Hindle’s slick bonhomie, and all the hearty back-slapping going on between him and Adrian, something is not quite right.
Is Lucy being paranoid? Or is she just suffering, as several of those around her suggest, from the fog-headedness known as “mommy brain”? As Dr. Hindle’s perpetually beaming assistant, Nurse Dawn (Gretchen Mol), suggests, Lucy should be happy with the growing life inside her, with her devoted, successful husband, with the promise of the whole motherhood experience laid before her. So what, exactly, is wrong?
False Positive is framed as a horror movie: Its opening-credits sequence hints at bloody havoc to come, though its chills are mostly the psychological kind. Lucy quickly realizes that she’s losing control over what she refers to as her own “birth story,” a phrase Adrian mocks as being something she picked up on Instagram. The movie is set up so that we’re in tune with Lucy’s creeping paranoia: Adrian has a sneaky home-office safe where he keeps a secret…something. A scene in which he fastens a gold Cartier love bracelet to Lucy’s wrist, with its accompanying mini-screwdriver, cements his smug sense of ownership over his wife, and her womb. Dr. Hindle’s smooth moves have a sinister veneer: Even the way he praises Nurse Dawn for putting the perfect sploodge of lubricant on the speculum feels unctuously paternalistic, the self-satisfied purr of a lion who knows he’s king.
What’s more, Lucy is actively discouraged—by the men around her, of course—from seeking the counsel of a midwife (played by Zainab Jah). The point, in case you’re not getting it, is that although only women can bear children, men have an enormous amount of control over what happens to a woman before, during and after her pregnancy. False Positive even includes a sequence, replete with black-and-white historical photographs, in which a character gives a mini-history of how men have sought to “improve” the childbirth experience for women, without bothering to find out what they want or need.
Has human brainpower really deteriorated to the point where we need every movie’s ideas spelled out for us in signpost letters? False Positive has a lot going for it: Glaser, who brought such marvelous deadpan charm to Broad City, makes a hugely sympathetic mom-to-be, shifting through every believable gradation of joy and outright terror at the thought of what awaits her. Brosnan and Mol are terrific in their supporting roles, bringing the movie some much-needed semi-comical glints of ice. And Lee shows some visual creativity: As Lucy drifts into an anesthesia-induced sleep before a medical procedure, her unspoken anxiety manifests itself as a blood-red butterfly shape spreading across her face like a mask, an evocation of the hazy nightmare twilight that’s descending upon her like a possessive demon. Lee goes for, and sometimes captures, a jittery Rosemary’s Baby vibe; Lucy keeps trying to step out of the shadow of all those who know what’s best for her and her unborn offspring, only to be nearly subsumed by that amorphous, hungry shape.
But False Positive doesn’t sustain its most suspenseful ideas. The big revelation at the end is something of a letdown, and the movie’s final image spells out a metaphor that ought to have been left to suggestion. Historically, horror movies have very often been “about” something beyond their surface scares: a million and one very dull theses have been written about the fear-of-Communism subtext of 1950s creature features. But now it seems that more and more filmmakers are striving to make movies that qualify, for worse rather than better, as that thing we call elevated horror. In search of profundity, they’re boring us more than they’re scaring us—their intent becomes a Wile E. Coyote mallet, when the shivery insinuation of an IV drip would have been so much more effective. Thoughtful moviegoers want, and deserve, filmmakers to trust their intelligence, but False Positive doesn’t extend that good faith. It’s a moderately effective horror movie with a much better, creepier and more nuanced one nestled invisibly alongside, the unborn twin ghost of a movie that might have been.
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