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Voice of America
Border Crossings: Levi Hummon
Country-pop singer/songwriter from Nashville Levi Hummon has garnered over 162 million global streams due in large part to fan favorites such as “Good Riddance" and “Paying For It” featuring Walker Hayes, which has garnered viral traction and major success on TikTok.
Voice of America
August 21, 2023
A look at the best news photos from around the world.
Voice of America
Iran: Prisoner Swap With US Could Take Two Months
Iran said Monday it could take up to two months to complete a prisoner swap it has agreed to with the United States.
"A specific time frame has been announced by relevant authorities, and it will take a maximum of two months for this process to take place," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told a news conference.
Tehran and Washington reached an agreement earlier this month in which both pledged to release five of each country's citizens they have been holding. In addition, the U.S. agreed to release $6 billion in Iranian assets that have been held in South Korea.
The Iranian assets were transferred to Switzerland's central bank last week for exchange and transfer to Iran, South Korean media reported Monday.
Iran has moved four detained U.S. nationals it has held at Tehran's Evin prison into house arrest, a lawyer for one of them said. A fifth was already under home confinement.
Some material in this report came from Reuters.
Voice of America
Khamenei Falsely Paints Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps As 'Anti-Terrorist' Force
Through direct actions and via a network of proxy forces, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has engaged in global terrorism for decades.
Voice of America
VOA Newscasts
Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.
I’d wreck it in the pitch because I was so nervous. Being surrounded by an elite cadre of comedy writers had eroded my self-confidence.
After the rewrites and rehearsals, we would finally tape the show on Friday night. While sitting in the audience of a sitcom starts out fun, it ends up feeling like the longest night of your life. At 5 p.m. the crowd would be revved up and punchy, but after six hours of sitting in one place, watching the same scenes over and over, they’d be hungry and tired and no longer laughing.
Which is why it made no sense that we had to rewrite jokes based on the studio audience’s response. During the taping, the writers sat in a tense cluster off to the side of the bleachers. Between takes, we would huddle around David and Marta to pitch new jokes when the ones in the script didn’t get a big enough laugh. And when I say big enough, I mean uproarious—the kind of laughter that is impossible to elicit after someone’s already heard a joke. The element of surprise is crucial. A joke might get a hearty laugh on the first take, but on subsequent takes the laughter would taper off, sending David and Marta into a tizzy.
The huddle was by far the most stressful part of the job. Being a good performer was everything, even more so than in the room, because in this high-stakes, time-pressure situation, David dropped the pretense of diplomacy and only listened to pitches from his three go-to joke writers—all of whom happened to be men.
The one time I ever got a joke in during the huddle was when Marta liked it. In the Christmas episode, “The One with All the Candy,” Monica makes holiday treats to put out for the whole apartment building. When Chandler asks her why, she says, “We can learn their names and get to know our neighbors.” Chandler’s response to this, as written in the script, did not garner the side-splitting laughter required. The usual suspects pitched some alternate lines, all met by David’s silence.
Then I pitched, “Wouldn’t it be easier if we just moved?”
Marta let out a full-throated laugh, which in that moment was the most wonderful sound I’d ever heard. David seemed unconvinced, but there were no other pitches he liked, so Marta got her way and I got a joke in.
That also happened to be the episode in which I was tapped to be an extra, playing one of the angry neighbors who stalks Monica and Chandler’s apartment, demanding more candy. I escaped from the huddle and stepped onto the set, joining the rowdy mob packed into the hallway. David Schwimmer, who was directing the episode, came over to give instructions. “Patty, can you scooch closer to the door?”
I scooched, thrilled that instead of saying, “Hey you,” Schwimmer addressed me by name. That night was the high point of my Friends experience. For once, I felt like I had something to do with the show.
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/friends-patty-lin.jpg?w=560
Friends rarely won any Emmys, but they swept the People’s Choice Awards every year. The writers were all invited to attend the ceremony (without plus-ones). Decked out in a crimson floor-length gown, I hitched a ride with a few other writers in a stretch limo. When it was time to accept the trophy for Favorite Television Comedy Series, the whole staff was urged to go up on stage. I stood behind the others, feeling like I didn’t deserve to be up there at all.
Even though I got along with everyone at Friends, I still felt like an outsider. I once heard the writers refer to the act of telling people they wrote for Friends as “dropping the F-bomb.” The bomb was meant to impress and would usually be met with wide eyes, drooling, and babbling. But I had no desire to drop the F-bomb, because presenting myself as a Friends writer felt fraudulent and just kind of wrong.
For a long time, I justified my imposter syndrome because I was a drama writer working in comedy. And yes, that was part of it. But imposter syndrome, I later learned, is a common experience for racial minorities who work in fields where[...]
y rule that talking about sex in the writers’ room did not constitute harassment, and that for an “adult” comedy that revolved around sexual themes, it was necessary for the creative process.
Harmless, maybe. But necessary? That’s hard to justify. I remember exactly one time that details about our sex lives were used on the show, in “The One with Rachel’s Book,” where Joey finds a book of erotica that Rachel uses to get off. (Several of us had such books in our nightstand drawers.) But mostly we talked about sex just to amuse ourselves. What kind of birth control did we use? Did we have sex on our periods? Did we ever fall asleep during sex? When I answered no to the latter, one of the writers quipped, “That’s because you’re not married.”
None of these conversations bothered me. I was proud of my ability to laugh at obscenities and not take offense. In comedy, this toughness—or, put another way, lack of sensitivity—was considered a requirement. But given how much has shifted in the last few years around sexual harassment and racial injustice, I’d probably feel differently if I were sitting in a writers’ room today. Can people be funny and sensitive at the same time? I’d like to think so.
Read More: How the Writers Strike Will Affect Your Favorite Shows
On rare occasions, the silly things we did to kill time while trapped in the room led to a story idea. Like the 50 states game. Here’s how it works: you make a list of the 50 American states from memory. Easy, right? But people always forget at least one. I was unable to master the game and became obsessed with it. The writers’ room table was littered with sheets of paper listing 48 states, followed by an angry expletive and a doodle of my head exploding.
We turned my fixation into a B-story for the episode I would write, “The One Where Chandler Doesn’t Like Dogs.” This was going to be the Thanksgiving episode, and the A-story was about Phoebe sneaking a dog into the apartment and everyone having to hide him from Chandler.
What I was most worried about was writing jokes, so I took meticulous notes in the room even though the writers’ assistant was already typing up every word. After we broke the story, I went home to write for a week—what is known as “going off on script.” Working my own hours, braless and in stretchy pants, I relished the solitude, free from the peculiar social obligations of the Friends office. But I felt immense pressure to write a good script, or at least one that wouldn’t get me fired.
Fearful of making a wrong move, I stuck closely to the detailed outline, and I didn’t have trouble figuring out story beats by myself. But I got anxious whenever I had to write my own joke—not just a funny line of dialogue but a joke joke, especially a strong one at the end of a scene or act. Not trusting my own instincts, I needed to bounce my jokes off someone else. I didn’t realize at the time that every comedy writer does this. Even my boyfriend, a much more experienced writer, was still asking, “Is this funny?” He came over to read my draft.
Read More: These Are The 10 Best TV Shows Ever, According to Hollywood
When I got to the tag (the short scene after the end credits), I hit a snag. The room had not been able to decide on the final joke. Earlier in the episode, Ross makes a bet with Chandler that he’ll be able to win the 50 states game; if he can’t, his punishment is he won’t get to eat Thanksgiving dinner. But Ross can only remember 49. In the tag, Chandler tortures him over his hubris, and Ross is supposed to remember the 50th state in some random, hilarious way. I was beating my head against the wall, trying to figure out how to make Wyoming funny, when my boyfriend came up with a great idea.
CHANDLER
Are you aware how wrong you were when you said this game was, and I quote, “insanely easy”?
ROSS
(defeated)
Yes.
CHANDLER
And you’re aware how acting all cocky makes other people feel stupid?
ROSS
Yes, I’m aware.
CHANDLER
And you’re aware how annoying you are and how you’ll neve[...]
2021, a Spanish documentary titled Breaking the Silence, revealed that there were other problems, too: players had endured sexual coercion, homophobia, and intimidating behavior from Quereda.
It also emerged that the then-RFEF president Ángel María Villar reportedly dismissed player concerns and ignored formal complaints about Quereda over the years, allowing his behavior to carry on.
Quereda was succeeded by Jorge Vilda in 2015, and though he has successfully led the team to World Cup victory, his tenure has also been controversial. In September, 15 of Spain’s top players expressed dissatisfaction about their “emotional and personal state” under Vilda’s leadership, and they called for him to be fired, saying they would not play for Spain’s national team until their working conditions improved. RFEF, now led by Rubiales, dismissed their concerns and said it will not succumb to pressure from players, and only three of the protesting players joined the tournament squad in Australia this summer. These kinds of problems are not unique to SpainFIFA has long been accused of not taking the women’s game seriously, and in recent years, it has been reckoning with rising complaints of misconduct. Allegations of mistreatment, particularly sexual harassment, have been reported across the globe.
Last month, it emerged that the former president of Haiti’s football federation, Yves Jean-Bart, 75, would appear in court to address sexual abuse allegations that were originally brought in November 2020. The allegations claimed that Jean-Bart “abused his position and sexually harassed and abused various female players, including minors.” At the time, Jean-Bart, nicknamed Dadou, was banned from soccer for life by FIFA’s ethics committee, but the decision was overturned in February. In July, women’s rights organizations won the right to appeal against the decision to drop the criminal case.
Similarly, in 2021, former Vancouver Whitecaps coach Hubert Busby Jr, was accused of misusing his position to solicit sex during the recruitment of a former player. That same year, an independent investigation, commissioned by the U.S. soccer federation and overseen by former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, found that emotional abuse and sexual misconduct were “systemic” in women’s soccer in the U.S. at every level. Yates had said she hoped the probe would discover that abuse allegations against former National Women’s Soccer League coach Paul Riley, which spurred the investigation, were an isolated incident. “Sadly, that is not what we found,” she announced when the report was released.
FIFA pledged this year to take action to support women playing at this year’s World Cup. It hosted pre-tournament educational presentations, and it became a requirement for each national team to select a welfare official who would undertake safeguarding training. The soccer body also vowed that it would create a “victim-centered approach” to any reports of abuse that emerged.
With such a strong focus on protecting women in the sport, soccer fans are now looking on to see how Rubiales will be held accountable—if at all, given his position at the very top of the country’s federation. The incident nods to a dark reality that, despite all the gains made in popularity up to and through this year’s World Cup, women’s soccer still has a long way to go towards achieving gender parity.
TIME
Jenna Lyons Is Breaking All the Unwritten Rules of Real Housewives
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/jenna-lyons-rhony-s14.jpg The announcement last fall that Jenna Lyons would be joining the season 14 cast of Bravo’s Real Housewives of New York shocked reality TV fans and fashion insiders alike. Lyons, the former president and creative director of J. Crew, who famously dressed Michelle Obama during her time as First Lady, has long been hailed as one of the most powerful women in fashion and a harbinger of all things achingly cool. By contrast, the Bravo housewives are more often associated with ostentatious displays of wealth, melodramatic conflicts, high maintenance (and usually gauche) glam, and an unquenchable thirst for recognition. Lyons, with her sizable clout, had no need to become a housewife; she already had her own reality competition show, Stylish with Jenna Lyons on HBO, as well as a now-iconic guest run on Lena Dunham’s Girls. However, her decision to join RHONY has set a new and refreshing tone for the franchise—and is helping prove that following the conventions of the Bravo playbook isn’t necessary to be a compelling housewife.
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[video id=KyLky1eV autostart="viewable"]
To watch the Real Housewives is to embrace a campy, flashy version of reality, filled with sparkly evening wear, alcohol-fueled girls trips, and petty feuds. In the Bravo universe, housewives immortalize themselves by flipping tables during dinner parties, staging over-the-top cabaret shows, and throwing meme-worthy shade during conflicts. Simply put, they become caricatures of what viewers might imagine rich women to be—more spectacle than aspiration. But with Lyons, a much-sought-after tastemaker even after her 27-year career at J.Crew ended, who seems less inclined toward the spotlight, we may have our first veritably cool housewife.
Read more: Jenna Lyons on Leaving J. Crew and Joining Real Housewives of New York
For Lyons, appearing on the show seems to be less about self-promotion or displaying wealth, than it is about experiencing something new. While many of the housewives attempt to leverage their casting into promoting their businesses or gaining a platform, Lyons doesn’t necessarily need to curry influence after three decades of being a fashion powerhouse—although she does have a line of false eyelashes, Loveseen, that she references on the show. She’s definitely wealthy (she has a gorgeous, editorial-famous SoHo loft and a Hamptons home with an ocean view), but her style evokes quirky “quiet luxury” more than the flamboyant looks typically seen on housewives. On a group trip to the Hamptons this winter, for example, while her castmates wear bodycon dresses and thigh-high boots, Lyons dons practical crew neck sweaters and jeans (though her wrists, of course, glitter with diamond bracelets). She marches to the beat of her own drum, even when the other women tell her that they think she looks better in tighter and more traditionally feminine clothing. Lyons’ assured, distinct personal style mirrors how she approaches being a housewife—she’s unconcerned with being good TV or trying to “produce” a storyline, a pratfall of many recent additions to the housewives, who have entered the Bravo universe as fans and thus, are students of the form.
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/jenna-lyons-rhony.jpg?w=560
Lyons has said she watched RHONY during its early years and screened some of the other housewives franchises when she was considering joining the show, but season 14 makes clear that she has not studied the art of being a housewife. While her castmates engage in outrageous antics, like bringing their own toilet paper to a host’s home or flirting with another cast member’s husband at their anniversary party in their bids for an entertaining edit, Lyons seems content just to be herself—wry, unpretentious, and surprisingly open about her vulner[...]
TIME
Writing for Friends Was No Dream Job
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/patty-lin-memoir-friends.jpg Ever since I retired from television writing at the ripe age of 38, people have asked me: “Why would you quit such a cool career?” Especially if they know I worked on popular shows like Friends, Freaks and Geeks, Desperate Housewives, and Breaking Bad. It’s impossible to answer this question over the course of a cocktail party conversation. Where would I even begin? There were the grueling hours, the egotistical bosses, the politics and dysfunction, the ways in which TV writing is more like making widgets than creating art—there’s everything that the Writers Guild of America is currently fighting against with their ongoing strike, and the issues have only gotten more complex since I retired in 2008.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
The decision to quit had been forming for years. I had been working as a television writer for a decade, and for at least half of that time I wanted out. My disillusionment had begun at my very first writing job but was momentarily staved off by a positive experience at Freaks and Geeks. Then came Friends.
When my agent told me the Friends team wanted to meet with me, I was stunned. It was, without a doubt, America’s most popular sitcom. Friends wasn’t just a show; it was a juggernaut. Therefore, whether I wanted to write for it was irrelevant. What kind of fool would pass up the chance? Still, that didn’t stop me from arguing for my limitations.
“I’m not a joke writer,” I insisted to my agent, Larry Salz. “The comedy on Freaks and Geeks was character-based.”
“They don’t need another joke writer. They want someone who’s good with story and character.”
This made me feel only slightly less petrified. Writing for Friends after only two years of experience seemed equivalent to going straight to the Olympics after just learning to skate. If I screwed up, it could ruin my career.
What made the situation even more uncomfortable was that NBC had just launched a diversity program, a sort of voluntary affirmative action. The network was making efforts to hire more writers of color. On principle, I support affirmative action policies because I believe overcoming institutional racism without it is impossible. But in practice? It’s a major mindf-ck. You don’t know if you’re getting the job because of your talent or your race. Naturally, I wondered whether I was hired for Friends because of the diversity program or because I was the right person for the job. But dwelling on that question wasn’t going to help my career. Friends had many writer-producers in decision-making positions, and because it was important for new writers to fit the culture, I had to be vetted by a total of eight people. These included the creators, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, and a bunch of erudite Harvard and Yale grads.
I managed to survive the gauntlet of interviewers and, after, heard that they called my former boss Judd Apatow to inquire about me. I saw him a few days later at a Freaks and Geeks panel discussion. After the talk we chatted in the lobby as fans milled around, eyeing him. Even though he had vouched for me with the Friends people, he warned me about taking the job.
“The show’s been on for what? Six seasons? It’s a well-oiled machine.” He shrugged. “You’re not going to learn that much.” Despite his warning, I knew that if the show wanted to hire me, there was no way I could refuse. Sure enough, when Larry told me they were offering me the job, we didn’t even discuss saying no.
My first day at Friends, in July 2000, was a nerve-racking blur. The staff had 14 writers, which was large, but this show had a big budget, many episodes to produce, and high expectations. Five of the writers were women. I was the only minority. The other new hires—all dudes—had previously been writers’ assistants on the show, so they were familiar with the staff and the c[...]
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Voice of America
VOA Newscasts
Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.
Voice of America
VOA Newscasts
Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.
Voice of America
Contrary to Claim, Sino-Russian Military Cooperation is Confrontational
China and Russia are aligning their foreign policies and military strategies to undermine the Western-led liberal-democratic world order. That alignment is confrontational in nature, given that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and China is eyeing Taiwan.
Voice of America
FLASHPOINT UKRAINE: Tracking the Foreign Business That Leave Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Copenhagen and addressed parliament, where he thanked the Danish government for donating F-16s. And the number of foreign businesses that have left Russia during the nearly 18 months of war.
they lack representation. As the only Asian writer in many rooms, I felt so alone, buckling under the pressure to represent my entire race and prove that I deserved a seat at the table—or a spot on that stage.
When the season wrapped in the spring of 2001, I was delirious with exhaustion. The marathon was over, and I crawled across the finish line. Once again, my future was up in the air. Friends had an option on me, which meant that if they wanted me back, I had to do it. As far as I knew, no writers left Friends of their own accord. I didn’t really want to go back, but I didn’t want to get rejected, either. No one had treated me differently during the last days, and I’d been included in all the season-end festivities. And yet I had a bad feeling.
Soon after we wrapped, my agent reached out. “I want to warn you before David Crane calls,” Larry said in his usual brass-tacks way. “They’re not picking up your option.”
“Oh. Okay.” I didn’t even try to act surprised. “Did he say why?”
“They need a joke writer for next year.”
Well, that was that. A joke writer I was not. Thinking of all those times I felt invisible in the huddle, I was mortified and indignant.
I was also a little bit relieved. No more all-night rewrites, no more anxious joke pitching, no more feeling like a nerd at the popular kids’ table. That said, it still sucked to be dumped. “My option didn’t get picked up” was just a euphemism for “I got fired.”
A few minutes after I hung up with Larry, David called. “This is an ‘I’m sorry’ call,” he began in a soft voice. I managed to pull myself together and put on a professional demeanor.
“I just want to thank you for the opportunity to work with such talented people on such a great show,” I said. “It’s been an amazing experience.”
I found out later that one of the other new writers had also been fired. I felt bad for him, but I have to admit it was a comfort that I wasn’t the only one, and that they’d fired a white guy as well.
In the end, Apatow was right: I didn’t learn that much, except that I never wanted to work on a sitcom again. But the choice had been clear at the time. And, for better or worse, Friends would remain my most recognizable credit.
Excerpted from End Credits by Patty Lin © 2023, used with permission from Zibby Books.
r finish this game unless I give you the answer?
ROSS
Yes, Chandler, I’m well aware! So just give me—
(freezes as it hits him)
Well aware . . . Delaware!! Delaware!!
A couple of days after I handed in my script, one of the senior writers called me into his office to give me notes. Amazingly, they weren’t too bad. I pulled it off—I didn’t get fired! But after my second draft, the script got turned over to the group. At Friends we rewrote every script together in the room, line by line. No one’s work was immune. When your script was getting torn apart, you had to let go of all sense of ownership or your ego would end up in tatters. I didn’t have much attachment to my Friends script, but the process of watching it get rewritten was painful and demoralizing, nonetheless.
There was one thing I loved in my first draft even though I didn’t come up with it: the Delaware joke. When the room was done with my script, only one word of the scene remained: Delaware.
After each script was completed, we’d have a table read in a Warner Bros. conference room, and the cast would read it aloud in front of the producers, writers, executives, and various department heads. Table reads at Friends were a big deal and served three purposes: (1) for the actors to judge the script (so they could gripe about it later), (2) for the showrunners to decide what didn’t work and needed to be rewritten, and (3) for the writer of the episode to feel both bloatedly important and sickeningly self-conscious.
At first, I was excited about table reads because I got to be in the same room as the cast, who were Big Stars. Plus, there was a catered breakfast buffet: fluffy scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, pancakes, waffles, pastries of all kinds. On the way to the table reads, I would start salivating like one of Pavlov’s dogs.
But the novelty of seeing Big Stars up close wore off fast, along with my zeal about breakfast. The actors seemed unhappy to be chained to a tired old show when they could be branching out, and I felt like they were constantly wondering how every given script would specifically serve them. They all knew how to get a laugh, but if they didn’t like a joke, they seemed to deliberately tank it, knowing we’d rewrite it. Dozens of good jokes would get thrown out just because one of them had mumbled the line through a mouthful of bacon. David and Marta never said, “This joke is funny. The actor just needs to sell it.”
Once the first rewrite was finished, we’d have a run-through on the set, where the actors would rehearse and work out blocking with the director. Then everyone would sit around Monica and Chandler’s apartment and discuss the script. This was the actors’ first opportunity to voice their opinions, which they did vociferously. They rarely had anything positive to say, and when they brought up problems, they didn’t suggest feasible solutions. Seeing themselves as guardians of their characters, they often argued that they would never do or say such-and-such. That was occasionally helpful, but overall, these sessions had a dire, aggressive quality that lacked all the levity you’d expect from the making of a sitcom.
Read More: I’m a Screenwriter. These AI Jokes Give Me Nightmares
The run-throughs were followed by more rewrites. We hunkered down in the writers’ room and worked into the wee hours, endlessly rewriting stuff that was funny the first time. Someone would pitch a joke and everyone would laugh, but whoever was running the room would ask for more pitches. We’d pitch dozens of alternates before they would decide to go with the first pitch. One night I fell asleep with my head on the table, and when I woke up they were still working on the same joke.
I tried to contribute to the rewrites, but my strength was fixing story problems—not pitching jokes. Comedy rooms favor writers who are quick on their feet and good at performing: class clowns. That’s not me. Sometimes I’d think of a joke that I could clearly picture Chandler or Phoebe saying to hilarious effect, but [...]
abilities, faults and insecurities. Case in point: during her confessional about the Hamptons trip, she expresses nervousness about being awkward and fitting in on the girls trip, which happens to be her first girls trip ever; she later talks about her mother’s recent death and how she reckoned with her mother’s late-in-life diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, something that a castmate connects to Lyons’ sometimes stoic demeanor. Later on the trip, she gracefully shares the story of her queer awakening (Lyons is the first openly gay housewife on RHONY) and how she was outed by the New York Post. Even her eyelash brand is an extension of this vulnerability—she developed the line because of a rare genetic disorder, incontinentia pigmenti, that affects skin, hair, and teeth.
Read more: Everything You Need to Know About the New Era of Real Housewives of New York
Lyons’ refusal to observe the unspoken rules of being a housewife doesn’t seem to be an issue. In fact, it has added to her story arc on the show, especially because the other women appear to be awed, hyperaware, and maybe slightly jealous of her aura. Lyons sets and sticks to her boundaries, declining to divulge the name of a new flame, even though housewives generally open up about all aspects of their lives while filming. Breaking with the convention of housewives constantly being expected to attend each other’s events, Lyons chooses to simply not show up when she doesn’t want to: in the Hamptons, when the other women are partying a little too hard, she decamps to her own house in the area for a good night’s rest, with the rationale that she had a work call at 6:30 the next morning; in another episode, she begs off a fashion presentation thrown by another cast member, citing an “event” at her home, which turns out to be a night of Christmas decorating with her son and goddaughter. Her insouciance seems to at once irk and fascinate the rest of the cast. Even her subtle moments of shade, a true prerequisite for any housewife, have an elevated element. She instructs a castmate, a fashion publicist, not to mix flashy designer labels; later, when skillfully relaying a bit of gossip without implicating herself, she expresses empathy for the naysayer.
Lyons’ debut as a housewife coincided with big changes for RHONY, which Bravo revamped after its controversial and low-rated 13th season. The franchise completely recast the show with a younger and more diverse set of housewives, including Lyons, who has emerged as the season’s biggest star and a true fan favorite. Lyons’ immense popularity as a housewife signals a shift in the world of RHONY and maybe Bravo at large. There will always be a demand for the memorable characters that have made the housewives franchises a reality TV behemoth. But Lyons, with her unfussy sense of authenticity and that ineffable cool factor,, makes the case that keeping it real is always in style.
ulture. They weren’t brand-new like me.
We gathered in the writers’ room, an enormous sun-drenched corner office with a huge oak table and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the San Fernando Valley. Before we did any work, Marta and David announced we’d be going out for the “annual welcome lunch” at Ca’ Del Sole, an Italian restaurant in Toluca Lake.
The lunch had the forced feeling of Thanksgiving dinner with relatives you don’t like. I could tell the old-timers were on their best behavior but would rather be gossiping over burgers from In-N-Out. I, too, wanted to be anywhere else. Sitting stiffly at one of the large round tables, I kept a smile plastered on my face and picked at my fancy salad, feeling guilty about being treated to such an expensive meal before even putting in a day’s work.
Read More: A Friends Reboot Isn’t Going to Happen, Says Co-Creator Marta Kauffman
In all of my fears about the new job, I never predicted one of the challenges I would face was that the Friends writing staff was cliquey, more so than at any other show I would work on. They reminded me of the preppy rich kids in my high school who shopped at Abercrombie & Fitch and drove brand-new convertibles. The welcome lunch was only the beginning. During pre-production the staff went out to lunch every day, and the stress of figuring out who to sit with stirred up troubling memories of the middle school cafeteria. Now I understood why the Friends writers had interviewed me so rigorously. Personalities were a huge part of the job.
Each 12-hour day started in the giant conference room. At 10 a.m. people would trickle in to eat breakfast and read the newspaper. Then we’d break into two teams of seven and go to separate rooms, where each team worked on a different episode. We had to produce 23 shows that season. It was brutal. Having one team work on the current episode while the other worked on the next was the only way to keep up.
Every morning a few senior writers would go off to confer and come back minutes later to assign the teams. The teams varied each day and seemed to be picked at random. But they were of utmost importance, because the people you were stuck with determined whether you would have a decent day or be miserable by lunchtime.
David would always lead one room and Marta the other. I was scared of them both, for different reasons. David, an impossible-to-please workaholic, was always looking for a better line or joke. Behind his soft-spoken demeanor, he seemed to be judging everyone with eagle eyes. He was the most genteel person in the room, becoming visibly pained whenever the conversation turned blue—which happened often.
Marta was the Oscar Madison to David’s Felix Unger. She had a booming voice and a laugh that could rattle windows. She would kick her bare feet up on the conference table and do needlepoint while we worked. An outspoken liberal, Marta took the diversity program seriously, and I suspected she had more to do with hiring me than David did. Still, I would do anything to avoid being alone with her and having to chitchat, which always felt stilted. (Crane and Kauffman declined to comment.)
In theory, “breaking” stories on Friends—plotting out an episode’s scenes—should’ve gone faster than on dramas, since sitcoms are only half as long and have fewer story beats. Even so, there was a lot of sitting around the table in silence. Trust me, any show that makes it to season 7 is hurting for ideas.
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/end-credits-patty-lin.jpg?w=560
Much of the time, the writers’ room was like an endless cocktail party where we had run out of polite things to talk about. And so we talked about sex. Constantly.
That year a former writers’ assistant had launched a lawsuit against Warner Bros. for racial discrimination and sexual harassment, claiming that sexually explicit talk made the Friends writers’ room a hostile workplace. It’s true that the sex talk was pervasive. But the California Supreme Court would ultimatel[...]
TIME
The Head of Spain’s Soccer Federation Is Under Fire for Inappropriate World Cup Celebrations
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/spain-women-soccer.jpg What should have been a moment of pride for the nation of Spain, after its women’s soccer team won the World Cup on Sunday, was left stained by the actions of one man.
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The Spanish soccer federation (RFEF) president, Luis Rubiales, has come under fire for apparently forcibly kissing a player on the mouth following the nation’s historic win against England. Rubiales’ behavior, which was circulated in videos on social media, sparked widespread condemnation, including from several Spanish ministers.
Rubiales was captured on camera taking Spanish forward Jenni Hermoso by the head and kissing her during the official post-match ceremony. Rubiales was also seen embracing other players in hugs and kissing them on the cheek, but he did not kiss anyone else on the lips.
“I didn’t like it,” Hermoso said during a livestream video from the locker room shared afterwards. She has since defended Rubiales, telling media outlets that they have a great working relationship and it was a “natural gesture of affection and gratitude.”
But kissing Hermoso was not his only act that fans say crossed the line. Rubiales was also shown entering the women’s dressing room after the trophy lift, where he reportedly joked that the soccer federation would fly the team to Ibiza, where he would marry Hermoso. He was also filmed next to Queen Letizia of Spain making what appeared to be a gesture involving his crotch.
Rubiales initially dismissed his critics, calling them “idiots,” but he apologized for his behavior on Monday in a video, saying: “I made a mistake, for sure.”
Rubiales noted that he didn’t act with “any bad intention or bad faith, what happened, happened, in a very spontaneous way,” but he said he was sorry, because “this is the biggest success in our history in women’s football, the second World Cup that we’ve won, and this has affected the celebration.”
As fans call on FIFA to take action against Rubiales, here’s what to know about the debate. Spanish ministers are calling out RubialesSince Sunday, a number of Spanish ministers and politicians have voiced their discomfort with Rubiales’ behavior as well as with subsequent justifications that it was just an act of cordial passion.
“Let’s not assume that giving a kiss without consent is something ‘that happens.’ It is a form of sexual violence that women suffer on a daily basis and until now invisible, and that we cannot normalize. It is the task of the whole society. Consent in the centre. Only yes is yes,” Irene Montero, Spain’s Equality Minister said in a post on X (the social media platform previously known as Twitter).
Meanwhile Minister of Social Rights Ione Belarra, joined her colleague in calling out Rubiales’ actions: “We are all thinking: if they do this in front of the whole of Spain, what will they not do in private? Sexual violence against women must end,” she posted on X. Socialist politician Adrián Barbón said the gesture was disrespectful and described it as “an abuse that neither the moment, nor the euphoria, nor the joy justifies,” according to the Guardian. Additionally, Marta Lois, the parliamentary spokesperson of left-wing coalition party Sumar, called for Rubiales’ resignation. Spanish women’s soccer was already mired in controversy In 2015, Ignacio Quereda, the former coach of Spain’s national women’s soccer team, was ousted from his role after 27 years when the entire 23-player squad publicly called for his termination. Quereda oversaw the team’s first World Cup qualification, taking them to Canada where they secured just one point in three group games. Following their disappointing performance, players detailed their technical complaints against the coach in a group statement.
But in [...]
TIME
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