- Words Notion Staff
Rated Reads shares our pick of the best articles from around the web. This week: Lashana Lynch on the new James Bond and how fatigue became fashion's hottest trend.
Lashana Lynch on ear for eye, Bond and why there’s still a long way to go for change
As the latest Bond movie shatters the box office, Annabel Nugent speaks to Lashana Lynch about shaking up the franchise, tokenism, her heritage, and much more.
“’The world is so used to giving Black people the scraps,’ she says. “Saying congratulations, you’ve got your one and now we can move on. Most studios I’ve met with, most theatres I’ve sat in and worked in, have had their one Black play, their one Black film or their one Black lead and they feel really happy with themselves. And they shouldn’t and we should tell them they shouldn’t.’”
From anecdotes of bringing her mum onset to doing the “right and the radical” thing, there’s plenty not to miss in this interview.
Extravagant eye bags: how extreme exhaustion became this year’s hottest look
Feeling burnt out? Turns out you’re right on-trend. According to The Guardian eye bags are the hottest look right now and it all started out – unsurprisingly – with TikTok.
“Lots of people credit a user named @saracarstens for the trend. A few months ago she posted a video where she smeared makeup underneath her eyes in an effort to mimic the sort of dark circles you’d usually only expect to see in the very tired or unwell.”
Beyoncé and Ariana Grande Inspired ‘Six’ on Broadway’s Costume Design
A musical theatre performance that draws inspiration from Beyonce and Ariana Grande? Jazz Tangcay reports on Broadway’s latest show, Gabriella Slade’s Six.
“A modern twist on the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII, the show takes the form of a pop concert in which the queens, in turn, sing their stories. The band’s lead singer will be determined by the one who suffered the most as Henry’s wife. Each queen in the musical is based on influences from actual pop stars,” Tangcay writes.
She chats to Slade about the inspired costuming and much more.
The xx’s Romy and Cifika in conversation
After the Korean artist Cifika covered “Lifetime” by Romy from The xx, i-D got the two artists in conversation.
The duo discuss their commonalities, post-Covid DJ sets, covers, movies about water and much more.
“I’m really into trance,” Romy tells Cifika. “I just wanted to learn more, so I’ve been teaching myself Logic and it’s been a fun journey. Then I’ll be able to articulate my ideas better when I make music with The xx again; like bringing more ideas to the table as well as just trying to explain how I want it to sound. So that’s kind of the way I’m approaching my solo project, to learn a lot and then bring that back to The xx.”
Can anyone “steal” your life from social media?
This month, the New Yorker published “Who Is The Bad Art Friend?”, a piece about two women involved in a legal case in Boston.
“It all started when one of the women, Dawn Dorland, chose to donate a kidney to a stranger in 2015,” Sarah Manavis writes. “She documented the process in posts to a private Facebook group, sharing her feelings about doing something so selfless, and posting the letter she’d sent to the recipient of her kidney. Another (more successful) writer in the group, Sonya Larson, saw Dorland’s posts and didn’t engage with them: she found them self-aggrandising. A few years later, Dorland discovered that Larson had written a short story about a woman who donated her kidney, and that it included, almost verbatim, Dorland’s letter to the kidney recipient. (Later, Larson edited the story to make the letter less recognisably Dorland’s). Larson’s story was about a wealthy white saviour who obsessively sought validation for donating her kidney to an Asian woman. Dorland is now suing Larson. The New York Times story went viral, referred to simply as “Bad Art Friend.””
What are the ethics of stealing someone’s life for fiction, Manavis asks? In her opinion, what we post on the internet is up for grabs.
Joy Crookes On Racism In the UK and Debut Album Skin
Joy Crookes chats with Maybelle Morgan about politics, her Irish-Bangladeshi heritage, institutional racism and – ahead of her debut album ‘Skin’ – the thing itself:
“’Biologically and scientifically your skin is one of the strongest organs in your body,’ she continues. ‘But socially and externally, your identity is something that can be used against you. I like that juxtaposition between strong and weak, and it’s something that I grapple with a lot on the album.’”