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thetravelerwrites · 4 years

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Dr. Maël Halvorg (Fae)

Rating: Teen Relationship: Male Part-Fae/Female Part Fae Additional Tags: Exophilia, Monster Boyfriend, Fae, Naga, Reader Insert, Anthropology, Genetics Content Warnings: Children, Pregnancy, Incubation, Infertility Words: 4723

A commission by @ivymemnoch! With Amai and Yenuno's children getting older, they need a teacher, and Amai calls a friend to help out. Please reblog and leave feedback!

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“Amai, it’s great to hear from you!” You said, sitting back and sipping a coffee. You were typing up reports at your desk when she called. “God, it’s been forever since we last spoke. How are Yenuno and the children?”

You were surprised to get a call from your old friend while you were working overseas. You and Amai had gone to college together, and while she was getting a law degree in civil rights, you were studying anthropology. You were both in fields specializing in non-humans, which is why you were studying together.

There was a college that offered specific studies in exology, or the study of non-human sentient life, Exanian University. It provided classes in medicine, law, sociology, politics, cultural exo-anthropology, and many other subjects that focused solely on non-humans.

It was established in the early 1890’s and originally only taught humans about the nine Established races. The Established were allowed to attend school in the 50’s, and during the Neogon rights movement in the 80’s, the campus and curriculum was expanded to included education on the newer races that had begun to emerge as well as open its doors to non-humans. In addition, they began to petition and encourage other colleges to offer exological studies. Many alumni of E.U. were now teaching exological studies at other colleges.

You were now a research professor for E.U., studying newly emerged races and reaching out to those shy about integrating. When you first started your career, Amai and the firm where she worked would often help draw up protection papers for the new races until they were formally recognized as a Neogon race and therefore protected under the Neogon act, which granted them the same rights as humans and the Established. Though, as time went on, new races were much rarer, and you hadn’t needed their services. The surprise call was the first time you’d spoken in months, and you hadn’t seen her face-to-face in eight years.

“They’re well, thank you!” She said. “Whereabouts are you these days?”

“Portugal,” You replied. “We’ve had reports that the Encante people may actually exist, and we’ve been attempting to locate and make contact with them. Unfortunately, because they’re underwater creatures, they’re ability to shapeshift, and their reputation as seducers in the mythology of the region, it hasn’t been an easy task. Although, several people in the local villages claim to have Encantado ancestry, so we’re running blood tests to determine the legitimacy of that claim. If they’re blood comes back with unidentified DNA, we can start the protected race process. I assume that’s why you’re calling? You must have heard the news from Song. I sent him an email about drawing up papers a few days ago.”

“He did tell me, yes, and that’s wonderful news,” She replied. “But that’s actually not why I’m calling.”

“Oh?” You’re head rocked back, surprised. “To what do I owe the pleasure, then?”

“Well,” She sighed heavily. “The older children are at the developmental stage enough now where they should begin school, and the younger ones could use some help with supplemental skills. But both Yenuno and Dr. Halvorg don’t think putting them in a normal school a good idea, so I’ve been outvoted. At the very least, they need a tutor. I’ve done what I can on my own, but I’m not a very good teacher. At least, not for fifteen children. Soon to be eighteen, actually.”

“You’re carrying a new clutch?” You said, excited. “That’s wonderful! Yenuno must be very happy.”

“He is, and so am I,” She said, sounding please but tired. “Although we think this might be the last one. My body isn’t recovering as quickly as it used to and Yenuno worries about my health.”

“Understandable. So why did you call me?”

“Well, Yenuno doesn’t know anything about the educational system, having grown up in the wild, and Dr. Halvorg wants to hire some stuffy colleague of his who will bore the kids into a drooling stupor. Halvorg won’t accept anything less than the best, which I mean… I guess it’s nice that he wants the kids to have nothing but the utmost quality, I just wish he wasn’t so damn rigid. He needs to get laid, honestly,” She huffed, and you stifled a laugh. “Do you have someone you could recommend?”

“To get him laid?”

She snorted. “No! You know what I mean. Do you think any of your colleagues at the university would be interested in educating the children of a rare, endangered race? That’s got to have appeal to you academic types, right?”

“Hmm,” You hummed, sitting back in your chair and contemplating. “I’m not sure. You know, it occurs to me that I’ve never even met your children. Or your husband, for that matter.” You sat up and looked at your calendar. “You know what? I’m due for a vacation. Why don’t I come back state-side and meet all of your little ones? I can get a better idea of who would be a good fit for them. I know several people in early education who could be great for tutoring a large group of children at different development levels.”

“Ah, you’re a lifesaver, thank you so much,” Amai said. “I’ll owe you one big time.”

“Just find me a man and we’ll call it even,” You said, laughing. “I’ll text you when my schedule frees up and we’ll make some plans.”

Two weeks later, you stepped off the plane of the airport in Coleville and rented a car. Willowridge was an out of the way town that had the E.U. campus where you and Amai had gone to school. It was a little bit of a drive from the city to get there, but Coleville had the closest airport.

You arrived at the research facility sometime around mid-afternoon, greeted out front by Amai and her youngest child, Yenu. Yenu was a 50/50 hybrid between naga and human, which was unheard of; all other hybrids were a 95/5 percent split since the males both created and fertilized the eggs. Females were simply incubators in the breeding process. Yenu was a curious mix between Amai and her father, from her stubby little legs to her long snake tail and the blue scales running down her neck and back. From an academic perspective, it’s no wonder this Dr. Halvorg was so keen on keeping her and her siblings in the facility for study.

On the other hand, she was adorable, and the entire world needed to know about it. You wondered how many specialists actually knew about her existence and why there wasn’t more published about her in scientific literature. You’re fairly sure there was only one article based on her, and it was authored by Dr. Halvorg. They were likely keeping her under strict protections until she was older, to spare her the media circus.

“It’s so good to see you!” You said as you scooped her into a hug. Her belly wasn’t big yet, but you could feel it’s hardness against your own belly. Yenu squealed happily in her arms as you squished the two of them.

“You, too!” She said, kissing your cheek. “How was the drive?”

“Scenic, as always,” You said, following her as she went inside. “I got the email from Dr. Halvorg last night about accommodations. You’re right: he’s a little abrupt, but in all honestly I’ve yet to meet a geneticist that isn’t.”

“Believe it or not, he’s way less uptight than he used to be. The children really help lighten him up.”

“He likes kids?” You said, your opinion of him rising slightly.

“Oh, very much,” She said, then her voice lowered to a sad whisper. “He can’t have any children, apparently. His kind are bad breeders, he says.”

“His kind?”

“He’s part fae,” She replied.

“Oh,” You said, frowning. “That’s odd.”

“What is?”

“Well, I’m part fae, too, and I have three brothers. And I know of several subraces of fae that are prolific breeders, several of which I helped integrate myself. Exogenetics is still an evolving science. Perhaps he has been so focused on his current work that he hasn’t checked recent literature in the field. He’s been working in conservation for several decades, didn’t you say? I’ll make some calls and see what I can find.”

“I forgot you were part fae,” She said thoughtfully. “What subrace are you, again?”

“Russian Bereginya,” You replied. “What is he?”

“I’ve never asked,” She said. “He very rarely talks about himself at all. Honestly, it seems like a sore subject with him, so I’ve never brought it up. Even Yenuno seems hesitant to ask, and he gets along better with Dr. Halvorg than I do. The only reason I know his first name is because I’ve seen it on official reports. Only the children are allowed to say it, even if it’s to call him ‘Uncle Maël’.”

“A hard nut to crack, huh?” You asked as she led you into the public lobby and fished out a personnel I.D. badge.

“You could say that,” She said. “He and I don’t always see eye to eye, at least.” She swiped her card in a card slot and pressed her thumb on the printpad. “I’ve got a temporary I.D. waiting for you in the back. It’ll be good for the next two weeks. Let me know if you decide to stay longer, and I’ll have the expiration extended.”

“Sure, thanks,” You said.

“You’re about to meet the man himself,” She said as she walked though an automatic sliding door. “Plus my man, and my children. You remember their names?”

You nodded. “It’ll take me a while to match names to faces, though. You always were an overachiever.”

She laughed.

The two of you walked into what looked like the receiving room of a warehouse, except it was empty. There was a large, rolling aluminum wall that was raised and led to a forested area outside. There was an enclosed greenhouse type thing that had several nests built, as well as a cottage at the far end.

Each little nest had a small body with blue scales and warm almond skin lying in it, curled up into a coil, eyes closed and breathing softly. The cottage at the far end also had a movable wall, which was up, and a large, blue naga with long, straight, black hair and pale skin was sitting there, typing on a laptop that was perched on a standing desk.

“Yenuno is a bit socially shy, so he connects with others through the internet,” Amai whispered. “It’s about as much social interaction with the outside world as he can tolerate sometimes.”

“It must be naptime,” You whispered back, nodding toward the kids.

She laughed softly. “The older ones only need to eat once a day now, depending on the size of their prey, and they get tired after hunting and feeding, so we schedule it for noon. They should be up soon, though.”

She waved her hand to get Yenuno’s attention. He looked up and smiled, closing the laptop. He slithered down the ramp, over to Amai to plant a kiss on her lips, and then took Yenu in his arms, tossing her up once to make her giggle before squishing her in a big hug and blowing a raspberry into her cheek. Amai shushed him.

“Let’s go to the lounge to talk,” Amai said quietly. “Yenuno, this is my friend I told you about, the professor from E.U.”

“It’s nice to meet you finally,” Yenuno said as the three--no, four--of you went to a sitting area nearby. Half of the room had chairs and a couch, while the other side had cushions with a table in between. “Amai has told me many stories about you.”

“Most of them are true,” You said, sitting. “But I won’t say which.”

He laughed and set Yenu on the floor in front of him, watching her carefully as she scooted her way across the carpet. “Dr. Halvorg will be around soon. He usually talks to the children after their naps about their hunting experiences.”

“Jeez, I thought I was a workaholic,” You said. “Does he ever relax?”

“Not that I’ve ever seen,” Amai said, handing you a cup of coffee from the bar behind the couch. “If he’s awake, he’s in research mode. He even works through meals.”

“Well, I’ll hope he’ll make some time so I can discuss the children’s developments with him.”

“Oh, if it’s for the kids, he’ll make time,” Yenuno replied. “He’s practically adopted them.”

“I swear, if he thought he could get away with it, he’d forge our signatures on adoption papers,” Amai said sardonically.

“Speak of the devil,” Yenuno said, jerking his head at the open loading space near the greenhouse. A man stood there, surveying the sleeping children for a moment before heading over to the lounge area. He was thin and tall with long, white-blonde hair in a sleek braid down his back. He was pale complected and had a sharp, angular face with bushy eyebrows and vivid, amber colored eyes. His ears had a definitive point to them.

Yep, definitely Celtic fae heritage; you could spot it a mile away. It’s true that the Celtic fae populace had dwindled over the years, though you hadn’t really considered why. You chalked it up to interbreeding with other races or being edged out of their territory. Historically, since fae were immortal, or at least very long lived, they often didn’t feel the biological incentive that mortal creatures felt to procreate. Could their long-held disinterest in breeding have eventually rendered them infertile? That was a startling thought.

“Is this the professor I’ve heard so much about?” Dr. Halvorg asked as he approached. Yenu toddled her way over to him on her short little legs and he picked her up, popping her onto his hip like a pro.

“Yes,” Amai said and introduced you. Dr. Halvorg used his free hand to shake yours.

“Lovely to meet you,” He said. “I look forward to working with you. You have an impressive reputation. I’ve actually been following your progress for quite a while.”

“Really?” You asked, surprised.

“Oh, yes,” He replied, shifting a squealing Yenu to the opposite hip. “You’re the foremost anthropologist in the field currently. You and your team are responsible for integrating over thirty percent of known Neogon races in the last ten years. As a geneticist, as a scientist, seeing the steady expansion and confirmation of known non-human races happen in my lifetime is pretty incredible to watch.”

“Wow,” You said, stunned. “I didn’t realize I had such a reputation.”

“Well, you’ve been in the field for a long time,” He said with a smile. “It’s not surprising that you might not be aware of the impact your work has had on the world.”

You may have blushed, but you’d never have admitted it. Thankfully you were spared from finding a way to follow up that statement by a range of sleepy groans issuing from the enclosure. One by one, the children began to stretch and yawn and make their way over to their parents, the first of which was one of the youngest.

“Mommy!” He said, his curly hair bouncing as he slithered over the lip of the carpeted lounge area. “Who’s that?” He pointed directly at me.

“Osan, it’s not polite to point!” She said sharply. “This is my friend who I told you was coming to meet all of you. Wait for your brothers and sisters to get over here before we start introductions, okay?”

Osan shot across the enclosure to rudely awaken the rest of his siblings. His excited hollering echoed throughout the empty enclosure.

“Ah, youth. I’d love to siphon some of that energy and drink it like an espresso,” Amai said.

“Girl, I hear that,” You replied, chuckling.

A small army of nearly identical naga children came following Osan, curious about you, chattering and craning their necks to get a better look at you.

“Kids, line up, line up,” Yenuno said, wading out into the sea of small clones of himself. “These are the five year olds: Keenai, Tani, Fuma, and Amaia. The four year olds: Nenish, Tahara, and Sadji. The three year olds: Jinsa, Ishni, Chidil, Itheti, and Dashu. The two year olds: Osan and Khuzho. And little Yenu is eight months old.”

“I don’t know how you tell them all apart,” You laughed.

“I have a mole!” Sadji said, pointing at it. “See!”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” You said, bending down to pat his head. He shook off your hand but laughed. You tickled his chubby cheek and he giggled, trying to fend you off.

“So what would you like to do?” Amai said. “I assume you already have a plan.”

“Yes,” You said. “I’d like to interview each child with a behavioral therapist and get a sense of their development levels myself, and then Dr. Halvorg and I will compare notes. I can make my determination then.”

“Sounds good,” Amai replied. “But it doesn’t have to be today, does it? You just got into town. I’d love to take you out for an early dinner, if you haven’t eaten. Yenuno hunted with the kids, so he likely won’t eat again until morning.”

“Sure, I’d love to,” You said. “Dr. Halvorg, do you have dinner plans?”

“Oh, no, I have a lot of work to do,” He said. “Besides, I’m sure the two of you will want to catch up. Please, enjoy yourselves. If you all would excuse me, I have a report to write.” He kissed Yenu on the cheek before handing her back to Amai and tousled a few of the kids’ hair as he passed. “Come along, children. Let’s do our interviews and I’ll take you all out to the playground.”

The kids cheered and followed him down the hall to the offices.

“You weren’t lying, Amai, he is really good with kids,” You said.

“Between him and the volunteers, we never have to hire a babysitter, which is nice,” Yenuno replied.

“Some days, it’s his only redeeming feature,” Amai said with a sour smile. “I still haven’t quite forgiven him for what happened when I was pregnant with Yenu. If I sit too long, thinking about it, I get mad all over again.”

“Think of the eggs, my love,” Yenuno said patiently, patting her belly. “He’s apologized many times since then. You can’t hold a grudge forever.”

“I absolutely can,” She said churlishly. “I understand his job is conserving and repopulating your species, but our marriage is an entirely separate thing and he can keep his nose out of it.”

“Well, let’s get a cheesecake and forget all about it,” You suggested.

“Sound good to me,” She said. She kissed Yenuno on the lips and waved goodbye to him. “There’s a new Italian place that’s got really good reviews.”

“No seafood! Or wine!” Yenuno called after her.

“This ain’t my first rodeo!” She called back.

The Italian place was as good as Amai said it was, and the two of you went to Tumble’s Cafe for dessert and coffee. Tumble had actually been a client of Amai’s when a hate crime had been committed against him. Now his wife and kids had two shops open in town and were doing very well for themselves.

Lucy, Tumble’s wife, was a few years your junior and a mother of three. Amai and Lucy had become close friends over the years and they were both in an interspecies mommy group. You knew of her, since you’d both grown up in the same small town, but you hadn’t actually met her before. Amai told you that the triplets often played with her children at the park, and you had to stop for a moment and contemplate the strange image of bunnies and snakes playing together.

“Is this the professor?” Lucy asked as you came in with Amai.

“Did you tell the whole town I was coming?” You asked Amai.

“I didn’t need to,” Amai replied with a laugh. “Word gets around.”

“What can I get you guys?” Lucy asked, a big smile on her freckled face.

“Coffee and cheesecake to go, please,” You said.

“Oh, no coffee for me,” Amai interjected. “Can I have a decaf iced cinnamon chai instead?”

“You got it. Whipped cream on top?”

“Yes, please. Where’s Tumble?”

“Putting the kids to bed upstairs,” Lucy said. “Such a good daddy. We’re talking about having more.”

“More than three?” You asked as she handed you a steaming cup of coffee. “I can’t imagine having more than two, at the most.”

“I guess it comes with having a non-human partner who’s used to the idea of having many children,” Lucy said, nodding at Amai, who tilted her head in agreement. “Not all non-humans have litters or clutches, but the ones who do always want more kids. At least the girls are in school now andTumble gave me a good five years before asking for another litter, unlike supermom over here. How’s that going on your end, by the way?”

“That’s why the professor is here,” Amai said, bumping you slightly with her shoulder. “She just got in today. The evaluations start tomorrow.”

“Well, good luck.” She handed you a box that contained two generous slices of cheesecake.

“Thanks, Lucy,” Amai said as the two of you left. “I’m sure I’ll be back in here soon. Tumble’s pastries are the best in town.”

“I’ll tell him you said that!” Lucy said with a laugh, waving.

The next morning, you began setting up for the individual assessments when Dr. Halvorg entered the room.

“Good morning,” You said. “Are you observing with the behavioral specialist?”

“I am the behavioral specialist,” He said. “I have a PhDs in child psychology and clinical psychology.”

“How many degrees do you have?” You asked, impressed.

“A few,” He admitted. “I’ve been alive for quite a long time, so I go back every once in a while to get another, or for a refresher. The education for each degree is much different now than it was fifty years ago.”

“How old are you?” You asked. “I know you’re part fae.”

“Amai told you that, eh?”

“Maybe,” You replied. “I mean, I’m part fae, too, so it’s not like I’m bothered by it.”

“You are?” He asked, looking at you keenly. “That wasn’t in your dossier. European?”

“Russian, and it’s not really a secret. I’m surprised you didn’t already know; I figured Amai would have said something. I was actually thinking you and I should have a conversation about that.”

He looked at you with an indecipherable expression and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, one of the eldest children came in the door.

“Later,” He said. You nodded.

The evaluations were interesting. The children were advanced for their ages, though Dr. Halvorg told you that was normal among nagas, who had to mature quickly in the wild. Watching them problem solve during the assessment was actually fascinating. They grasped new concepts relatively quickly and were wildly curious. They actually seemed happy to learn new and unusual things and kept asking you about your work with new races. You imagined they got a lot of that exuberance from Amai. Yenuno seemed a great deal more anxious and withdrawn.

The assessments took the entire day, and Dr. Halvorg asked you back to his office to compare notes when they were done.

“I think Ishni is slightly behind the others in his age group, or rather his brothers are more advanced. Honestly, it’s hard to tell with nagas. Their development is so unusual.”

“I would agree,” Dr. Halvorg said. “With Ishni being behind, that is. But it’s nothing some focused work won’t fix. The rest of them are advancing well, based on the available statistics for their age groups.”

“Yes, it’s shocking how quickly they pick up new things. I wouldn’t be surprised if they completed a full curriculum in just a few years.”

“Based on today’s evaluations, do you have a candidate in mind who would work for them?” He asked.

You sighed heavily. “I do,” You said. “I actually know of several that would be good fits. Unfortunately, all of those people are currently under contract.”

“Oh,” Dr. Halvorg said. “I thought you said you knew someone who would be perfect for this job.”

“I said early development!” You replied. “But these children don’t need early development. That’s shapes and colors and numbers and things like that. All of these kids can already read. Even the two year olds! They need more advanced tutelage, and I didn’t realize that when Amai first asked.”

“So what would you recommend?”

You sat back in your chair. “Give me a few days to think it over and make some calls and I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, just go about things as normal. I’d like to observe how things run here naturally.”

“Is that in reference to the search for an educator?”

“No, it’s for my own personal observations,” You said, smiling. “I am still an exo-anthropologist, after all, and quite honestly, the last couple of days have been riveting.”

He grinned. “A woman after my own heart.”

Two nights later, you walked into the enclosure after dinner to a strange sight: Dr. Halvorg reading the kids a bedtime story. He was sitting on the ground in the circle of nests and reading from a big book of non-human fairy tales. Race appropriate ones, of course. It was so unusual that all you could do was lean against the doorframe and listen.

When he finished, he helped settle all of the children and wished them a good night, and set the lights to starlight, with little pinpricks of light shining through the ceiling. When he saw you, he walked over.

“So, no good,” You said. “There aren’t any teachers who can come in on short notice.”

He sighed unhappily. “Well, what now?”

“I’ve decided that until they make contact with the Encante people, I’m not needed, so I might as well make the most of my time here and be the kids’ tutor until I need to go back or a teacher is made available.”

“Really?” Dr. Halvorg said, surprised. “Well, the kids like you, and you’re certainly well-educated. Have you ever taught before?”

“Briefly at E.U.,” You replied. “I taught one year of anthropology. It was nice staying in one place for a while, and the students seemed receptive to me. I only left because I was needed for a first contact situation.” You looked around. “Where’s Yenuno and Amai?”

“Date night,” He said. “They’re off… doing whatever people do on dates these days. I haven’t dated in decades, so I’m not certain what that entails anymore.”

“I could fix that, if you like,” You offered.

He smiled, but tilted his head. “How do you mean?”

“You could go on a date with me,” You said. “Since I’m going to be staying a while and working with you, it’ll be nice to get to know you better. And… maybe more than that.”

He looked like you’d hit him with a brick. He was still smiling confusedly, but his mouth was open and he couldn’t seem to speak.

“You okay there?” You asked.

“Ye--yes,” He stammered. “Forgive me. I… I appreciate the offer, but… I... I, uh…”

“It’s okay to say no, Maël,” You replied, laughing a little. “You don’t have to find an excuse. ‘No’ is a valid answer.”

He laughed a little self-consciously. “I’m sorry. I’ve been married to my work for so long that I just haven’t considered the possibility of dating. It’s… not something I’m interested in. I hope you understand.”

“Of course,” You replied. “That’s completely fine. And if you change your mind, that’s fine too. You know how to get in touch with me. No pressure. We’re both adults, after all.”

“Yes,” He said, adjusting his glasses. “I appreciate that. Thank you for the offer.”

“Think nothing of it,” You said. “I should get back to work. See you tomorrow.”

“Yes,” He repeated. You waved and walked away, unaware of his curious, piercing gaze on your retreating back.

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My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

#Exophilia #Fae #Naga #Reader Insert

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justforbooks · 4 years

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Terry Jones obituary

One morning Brian Cohen, completely naked, flung open the shutters at his bedroom window to find a mob below hailing him as the Messiah. Mrs Cohen, played by Terry Jones, who has died aged 77, had something to say about that. “He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy,” she told the disappointed crowd. It became a classic cinema moment.

The 1979 film Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a satire about an ordinary Jewish boy mistaken for the Messiah, which Jones directed and co-wrote with his fellow Pythons Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Michael Palin, was banned by 39 British local authorities, and by Ireland and Norway. Jones and his chums were unrepentant: they even launched a Swedish poster campaign with the slogan: “So funny it was banned in Norway.”

As for Jones’s performance as Mandy Cohen, it united two leading facets of the funnyman’s repertoire: his fondness for female impersonation, and his passion for historical revisionism. The latter was evident not just in his work for Monty Python – in which his historian’s sensibility proved essential to the satire of Arthurian England in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), which he co-directed and co-wrote – but also in several documentaries and books in which he stood up for what he took to be the misrepresented Middle Ages.

“We think of medieval England as being a place of unbelievable cruelty and darkness and superstition,” he said. “We think of it as all being about fair maidens in castles, and witch-burning, and a belief that the world was flat. Yet all these things are wrong.”

Arguably, without Jones, Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-74) would not have revolutionised British TV comedy. He was key in developing the show’s distinctively trippy, stream-of-consciousness format, where each surreal set-up (the Lumberjack Song, the upper-class twit of the year show, the dead parrot, or the fish-slapping dance) flowed into the next, unpunctuated by punchlines.

For all his directorial flair, though, Jones may well be best remembered for creating such characters as Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson, Cardinal Biggles of the Spanish Inquisition, the Scottish poet Ewan McTeagle and the monstrous musician rodent beater in the mouse organ sketch who hits specially tuned mice with mallets.

Thanks to the show’s success, Jones was able to diversify into working as a writer, poet, librettist, film director, comedian, actor and historian. “I’ve been very lucky to have been able to act, write and direct and not have to choose just the one thing,” he said.

Jones was a second world war baby, born in Colwyn Bay, north Wales, and brought up by his mother, Dilys (nee Newnes), and grandmother, while his father, Alick Jones, was stationed with the RAF in India. He recalled meeting his father for the first time when he returned from war service: “Through plumes of steam at the end of the platform, he appeared – this lone figure in a forage cap and holding a kit bag. He ran over and kissed my mum, then my brother, then bent down and picked me up and planted one right on me. I’d only ever been kissed by the smooth lips of a lady up until that point, so his bristly moustache was quite disturbing.”

When he was four, the family moved to Surrey so his father could take up an appointment as a bank clerk. Terry attended primary school in Esher and the Royal Grammar school in Guildford. He studied English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and developed a lifelong interest in medieval history as a result of reading Chaucer.

At Oxford, he started the Experimental Theatre Company with his friend and contemporary Michael Rudman, performing everything from Brecht to cabaret. He also met Palin and the historian Robert Hewson, and collaborated with them on a satire on the death penalty called Hang Down Your Head and Die. It was set in a circus ring, with Jones playing the condemned man. He and Palin then worked together on the Oxford Revue, a satirical sketch show they performed at the 1964 Edinburgh festival, where he met David Frost as well as Chapman, Idle and Cleese.

After graduation, he was hired as a copywriter for Anglia Television and then taken on as a script editor at the BBC, where he worked as joke writer for BBC2’s Late Night Line-Up (1964-72). Jones and Palin became fixtures on the booming TV satire scene, writing for, among other BBC shows, The Frost Report (1966-67) and The Kathy Kirby Show (1964), as well as the ITV comedy sketch series Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967-69).

In 1967, he and Palin were invited to write and perform for Twice a Fortnight, a BBC sketch show that provided a training ground not only for a third of the Pythons (Jones and Palin), but two-thirds of the Goodies (Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie) and the co-creator of the 1980s political sitcom Yes Minister, Jonathan Lynn.

Jones and Palin wrote and starred in The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) for LWT. Its conceit was to relate historical incidents as if TV had existed at the time. In one sketch, Samuel Pepys was a chat show host; in another, a young couple of ancient Britons looking for their first home were shown around the brand-new Stonehenge. “It’s got character, charm – and a slab in the middle,” said the estate agent.

In the same year, he became one of the six founders of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. They expected the show to be quickly decommissioned by BBC bosses. “Every episode we’d be there biting our nails hoping someone might find it funny. Right up until the middle of the second series John Cleese’s mum was still sending him job adverts for supermarket managers cut out from her local newspaper,” Jones recalled. “It was only when they started receiving sackfuls of correspondence from school kids saying they loved it that we knew we were saved.”

After Python finished its run on TV, Jones went on to direct several films with the troupe. The first, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, was, he recalled, “a disaster when we first showed it. The audiences would laugh for the first five minutes and then silence, nothing. So we re-cut it. Then we’d show it in different cities, saying, ‘We’re worried about our film, would you come and look at it?’ And as a result people would come and they’d all be terribly worried about it too, so it was a nightmare.”

He had more fun co-writing and directing two series for the BBC called Ripping Yarns (1976-79) in which Palin starred as a series of heroic characters in mock-adventure stories, among them Across the Andes by Frog, and Roger of the Raj, sending up interwar literature aimed at schoolboys.

Jones directed and starred in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which some religious groups denounced for supposedly mocking Christianity. Jones defended the film: “It wasn’t about what Christ was saying, but about the people who followed him – the ones who for the next 2,000 years would torture and kill each other because they couldn’t agree on what he was saying about peace and love.”

In 1983 he directed Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, in which he made, perhaps, his most disgusting appearance, as Mr Creosote, a ludicrously obese diner, who is served dishes while vomiting repeatedly.

During this decade Jones diversified, proving there was life after Python. In 1980, he published Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary, arguing that the supposed paragon of Christian virtue could be demonstrated to be, if one studied the battles Chaucer claimed he was involved in, a typical, perhaps even vicious, mercenary. He also set out to overturn the idea of Richard II presented in the work of Shakespeare “who paints him more like sort of a weak … unmanly character”. Jones portrayed the king as a victim of spin: “There’s a possibility that Richard was actually a popular king,” he said.

He wrote children’s books, starting with The Saga of Erik the Viking (1983), which he composed originally for his son, Bill. A book of rhymes, The Curse of the Vampire’s Socks (1989), featured such characters as the Sewer Kangaroo and Moby Duck.

In 1987, he directed Personal Services, a film about the madam of a suburban brothel catering for older men, starring Julie Walters. The story was inspired by the experiences of the Streatham brothel-keeper Cynthia Payne. Jones proudly related that three of four films banned in Ireland were directed by him – The Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life and Personal Services.

Two years later, he directed Erik the Viking, a film adaptation of his book, with Tim Robbins in the title role of a young Norseman who declines to go into the family line of raping and pillaging. In 1996, he adapted Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows for the big screen, giving himself the role of Mr Toad, with Ratty and Mole played by Idle and Steve Coogan. But it was rarely screened in cinemas. “It was ruined by studio politicking between Disney and Columbia Tristar,” he said. “We made a really nice film but no one saw it. It didn’t make any money, even though it was well reviewed.”

Jones was also unfortunate with his next film project. Absolutely Anything, based on a script he wrote with the screenwriter Gavin Scott, concerned aliens coming to Earth and giving one person absolute power. Plans were scuppered when a movie with a similar premise, Bruce Almighty, starring Jim Carrey, was released in 2003. Only in 2015 did Jones manage to film Absolutely Anything, in which Simon Pegg, playing a mild-mannered schoolteacher, is given miraculous powers by a council of CGI aliens voiced by Jones and his former Monty Python colleagues. Robin Williams, in one of his last roles, voiced Pegg’s dog.

Jones made well-received history documentaries, including in 2002 The Hidden History of Egypt, The Hidden History of Rome and The Hidden History of Sex & Love, in which he examined the diets, hygiene, careers, sex lives and domestic arrangements of the ancient world, often appearing in the films as an ancient character, sometimes dressed as a woman.

In his book Who Murdered Chaucer? (2003), he wondered if the poet had been killed on behalf of King Henry IV for being politically troublesome.

He wrote for the Guardian, about the poll tax, nuclear power and the ozone layer. He became a vocal opponent of the Iraq war, and his articles on the subject were collected under the title Terry Jones’s War on the War on Terror (2004).

In his 2006 BBC series Barbarians, Jones sought to show that supposedly primitive Celts and savage Goths were nothing of the kind and that the ancient Greeks and Persians were neither as ineffectual nor as effete as the ancient Romans supposed. Best of all, he sought to demonstrate that it was not the Vandals and other north European tribes who destroyed Rome but Rome itself, thanks to the loss of its African tax base.

When Jones was asked what he would like on his tombstone, he did not want to be remembered as a Python, perhaps surprisingly, but for his writing and historical work. “Maybe a description of me as a writer of children’s books or maybe as the man who restored Richard II’s reputation. I think those are my best bits.”

In 2016, it was announced that Jones had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia that impairs the ability to communicate. He and his family and friends spoke about his experiences to help others living with the condition.

Jones is survived by his second wife, Anna (nee Söderström), whom he married in 2012, and their daughter, Siri; and by Bill and Sally, the children of his first marriage, to Alison Telfer, which ended in divorce.

• Terence Graham Parry Jones, writer, actor and director, born 1 February 1942; died 21 January 2020

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Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1969 or 1970) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Referred to as the "Songbird Supreme" by Guinness World Records, she is noted for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style, and signature use of the whistle register. She rose to fame in 1990 after signing to Columbia Records and releasing her eponymous debut album, which topped the U.S. Billboard 200 for eleven consecutive weeks. Soon after, Carey became the only artist ever to have their first five singles reach number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, from "Vision of Love" to "Emotions".

Following her marriage to Sony Music head Tommy Mottola, Carey achieved worldwide success with follow-up albums Music Box (1993), Merry Christmas (1994), and Daydream (1995). These albums spawned some of Carey's most successful singles, including "Hero", "Without You", "All I Want for Christmas Is You", "Fantasy", "Always Be My Baby", as well as "One Sweet Day", which became the U.S. best-performing single of the 1990s. After separating from Mottola, Carey adopted a new image and incorporated more elements of hip hop into her music with the release of Butterfly (1997). Billboard named her the country's most successful artist of the 1990s, while the World Music Awards honored her as the world's best-selling recording artist of the 1990s.

After eleven consecutive years charting a U.S. number-one single, Carey parted ways with Columbia in 2000 and signed a $100 million recording contract with Virgin Records. However, following her highly publicized physical and emotional breakdown, as well as the critical and commercial failure of her film Glitter (2001) and its accompanying soundtrack, her contract was bought out for $50 million by Virgin and she signed with Island Records the next year. After a relatively unsuccessful period, she returned to the top of music charts with The Emancipation of Mimi (2005), which became the world's second best-selling album of 2005. Its second single, "We Belong Together", became the U.S. best-performing single of the 2000s. In 2009, she was cast in the critically acclaimed film Precious, which won her Breakthrough Actress Performance Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Throughout her career, Carey has sold more than 200 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. With a total of 19 songs topping the Billboard Hot 100, Carey holds the record for the most number-one singles by a solo artist, a female songwriter, and a female producer. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the second highest-certified female artist in the United States, with 66.5 million certified album units. In 2012, she was ranked second on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Women in Music. In 2019, Billboard named her the all-time top female artist in the United States, based on both album and song chart performances. Aside from her commercial accomplishments, Carey has won five Grammy Awards, nineteen World Music Awards, ten American Music Awards, and fifteen Billboard Music Awards. An inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, she is noted for inspiring other artists in pop and contemporary R&B music.

Early life

Mariah Carey was born in Huntington, New York. Her father, Alfred Roy Carey, was of African American and Afro-Venezuelan descent, while her mother, Patricia (née Hickey), is of Irish American descent. According to Mariah, her maternal grandparents were "from Ireland". The last name Carey was adopted by her Venezuelan grandfather, Francisco Núñez, after he came to New York. Patricia was an occasional opera singer and vocal coach before she met Alfred in 1960. As he began earning a living as an aeronautical engineer, the couple wed later that year, and moved into a small suburb in New York. After their elopement, Patricia's family disowned her for marrying a black man. Carey later explained that growing up, she felt neglected by her maternal family, which greatly affected her. During the years between the births of Carey's older sister Alison and herself, the Carey family struggled within the community due to their ethnicity. Carey's name was derived from the song "They Call the Wind Maria", originally from the 1951 Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon. When Carey was three, her parents divorced.

After their separation, Alison moved in with her father, while the other two children, Mariah and brother Morgan, remained with their mother. Carey grew apart from her father and later stopped seeing him altogether. By the age of four, Carey recalled that she had begun to sneak the radio under her covers at night, and just sing and try to find peace within the music. During elementary school, she excelled in subjects that she enjoyed, such as music, art, and literature, but did not find interest in others. After several years of financial struggles, Patricia earned enough money to move her family into a stable and more affluent area of New York. Carey had begun writing poems and adding melodies to them, thus starting as a singer-songwriter while attending Harborfields High School in Greenlawn, New York, where she graduated in 1987. Carey excelled in her music, and demonstrated usage of the whistle register, though only beginning to master and control it through her training with her mother. Though introducing her daughter to classical opera, Patricia never pressured her to pursue a career in it, as she never seemed interested. Carey recalled that she kept her singer-songwriter works a secret and noted that Patricia had "never been a pushy mom. She never said, 'Give it more of an operatic feel.' I respect opera like crazy, but it didn't influence me."

While in high school, Carey began writing songs with Gavin Christopher. They needed an assistant who could play the keyboard: "We called someone and he couldn't come, so by accident we stumbled upon Ben [Margulies]. Ben came to the studio, and he really couldn't play the keyboards very well – he was really more of a drummer – but after that day, we kept in touch, and we sort of clicked as writers." Carey and Christopher began writing and composing songs in the basement of his father's store during Carey's senior year. After composing their first song together, "Here We Go 'Round Again", which Carey described as having a Motown vibe, they continued writing material for a full-length demo. She began living in a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, which she shared with four other female students. Carey worked as a waitress for various restaurants, usually getting fired after two weeks. While requiring work to pay for her rent, Carey still had musical ambitions, as she continued working late into the night with Margulies in hopes of completing a demo. After completing her four song demo tape, Carey attempted to pass it to music labels, but failed each time. Shortly thereafter, she was introduced to rising pop singer Brenda K. Starr.

Career

1988–1992: Mariah Carey and Emotions

As Starr's friendship with Carey grew, so did her interest in helping Carey succeed in the industry. In December 1988, Carey accompanied Starr to a record executives' gala, where she handed her demo tape to the head of Columbia Records, Tommy Mottola, who listened to it on his way back home. After the first two songs, he was interested in her; later, after searching for Carey for two weeks, he immediately signed her and began mapping out her commercial debut. While she maintained that she wanted to continue working with Margulies, Mottola enlisted top producers of the time, including Ric Wake, Narada Michael Walden and Rhett Lawrence. Mottola and the staff at Columbia had planned to market Carey as their main female pop artist, competing with Whitney Houston and Madonna (signed to Arista and Sire Records respectively). After the completion of her debut album, Mariah Carey, Columbia spent more than $1 million promoting it. Despite a weak start, the album eventually reached the top of the Billboard 200, after Carey's exposure at the 33rd Annual Grammy Awards. Mariah Carey stayed atop the charts for eleven consecutive weeks, and she won the Best New Artist, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance awards for her single "Vision of Love." In addition to "Vision of Love", the album yielded the Billboard Hot 100 number one singles "Love Takes Time", "Someday", and "I Don't Wanna Cry". Carey became the first musical act since the Jackson 5 to have their first four singles reach number one, and the only artist ever to have their first five singles reach number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, from "Vision of Love" to "Emotions". Mariah Carey finished as the best-selling album in the United States in 1991, while totaling sales of over 15 million copies.

Carey began recording her second studio album, Emotions, in 1991. She described it as an homage to Motown soul music, as she felt the need to pay tribute to the type of music that had influenced her as a child. For the project, Carey worked with Walter Afanasieff, who only had a small role on her debut, as well as Robert Clivillés and David Cole, from the dance group C+C Music Factory. Carey's relationship with Margulies deteriorated over a personal contract Carey had signed with him before signing the record deal with Columbia, agreeing to split not only the songwriting royalties from the songs, but half of her earnings as well. However, when the time came to write music for Emotions, Sony officials made it clear he would only be paid the fair amount given to co-writers on an album. Margulies later filed a lawsuit against Sony which ultimately led to their parting of ways. Emotions was released on September 17, 1991, and was accepted by critics as a more mature album than its predecessor. While praised for Carey's improved songwriting, production, and new sound, the album was criticized for its material, thought weaker than that of her debut. Though the album managed sales of over eight million copies globally, Emotions failed to reach the commercial and critical heights of its predecessor.

As after the release of her debut, critics again questioned whether Carey would embark on a world tour to promote her material. Although Carey explained that stage fright and the style of her songs made a tour very daunting, speculation grew that Carey was a "studio worm," and that she was incapable of producing the perfect pitch and 5-octave vocal range for which she was known. In hopes of putting to rest any claims of her being a manufactured artist, Carey and Walter Afanasieff decided to book an appearance on MTV Unplugged, a television program aired by MTV. The show presented name artists "unplugged" or stripped of studio equipment. While Carey favored her more soulful and powerful songs, it was decided that her most popular content would be included. Days before the show's taping, Carey and Afanasieff thought of adding a cover version of an older song, in order to provide something different and unexpected. They chose "I'll Be There", a song made popular by The Jackson 5 in 1970. On March 16, 1992, Carey recorded a seven-piece set-list at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, New York. The revue was met with critical acclaim, leading to it being aired more than three times as often as an average episode would. The success tempted Sony officials to market it. Sony decided to release it as an EP, priced low because it was short. The EP proved to be a success, contrary to critics and speculations that Carey was just a studio artist, and was given a triple-Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and managed Gold and Platinum certifications in several European markets.

1993–1996: Music Box, Merry Christmas, and Daydream

During early 1993, Carey began working on her third studio album, Music Box. After Emotions failed to achieve the commercial heights of her debut album, Carey and Columbia came to the agreement that the next album would contain a more pop-influenced sound in order to appeal to a wider audience. During Carey's writing sessions, she began working mostly with Afanasieff, with whom she co-wrote and produced most of Music Box. On August 31, Music Box was released around the world, debuting at number-one on the Billboard 200. The album was met with mixed reception from music critics; while many praised the album's pop influence and strong content, others felt that Carey made less usage of her acclaimed vocal range. Ron Wynn from AllMusic described Carey's different form of singing on the album: "It was wise for Carey to display other elements of her approach, but sometimes excessive spirit is preferable to an absence of passion."

After declining to tour for her past two albums, Carey agreed to embark on a short string of concerts in late 1993, titled the Music Box Tour. Spanning only six dates across the United States, the short but successful tour was a large step for Carey, who dreaded the hassle of touring. With the release of the album's second and third singles, Carey achieved several career milestones and expanded her popularity throughout Europe. "Hero" became Carey's eighth chart topper in the United States and eventually became one of the most popular and inspirational songs of her career, while her cover of Badfinger's "Without You" became her first number one single in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Music Box spent prolonged periods at number one on international album charts and eventually became one of the best-selling albums of all time, with worldwide sales of over 28 million copies.

Following Music Box, Carey recorded a duet with Luther Vandross; a cover of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross's "Endless Love", and began working on an unknown project throughout the summer of 1994. In October, Billboard announced that she would release a holiday album later that year. Carey's album Merry Christmas was released on November 1, 1994 and eventually became one of the best-selling Christmas albums of all time, with global sales of over 15 million copies. Upon its release, the album's first single, "All I Want for Christmas Is You", was described as a "holiday standard" and considered "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon." Commercially, it became the world's 10th best-selling single by December 2018, with global sales exceeding 16 million copies. By the end of the holiday season of 1994, Carey and Afanasieff had already begun writing material for her next studio album which would be released late the following year.

Released on October 3, 1995, Daydream combined the pop sensibilities of Music Box with downbeat R&B and hip hop influences. Critically, the album was heralded as Carey's best to date; The New York Times named it one of 1995's best albums, and wrote, "best cuts bring R&B candy-making to a new peak of textural refinement [...] Carey's songwriting has taken a leap forward and become more relaxed, sexier and less reliant on thudding clichés." The album's second single, "One Sweet Day", a collaboration with R&B group Boyz II Men, remained atop the Billboard Hot 100 for a record-breaking 16 consecutive weeks, becoming the longest-running number-one song in history. Daydream became her biggest-selling album in the United States, and became her second album to be certified Diamond by the RIAA, following Music Box. The album sold 2.2 million copies in Japan alone and eventually reached global sales of over 25 million copies.

Due to the album's success, Daydream and its singles were respectively nominated in six categories at the 38th Grammy Awards. Carey, along with Boyz II Men, opened the event with a performance of "One Sweet Day". However, Carey did not receive any award, prompting her to comment "What can you do? I will never be disappointed again. After I sat through the whole show and didn't win once, I can handle anything." Following her awards ceremony disappointments, Carey opted to embark on the Daydream World Tour. It had seven dates, three in Japan and four throughout Europe. When tickets went on sale, Carey set records when all 150,000 tickets for her three shows at Japan's largest stadium, Tokyo Dome, sold out in under three hours, breaking the previous record held by The Rolling Stones.

1997–2000: New image and independence, Butterfly, and Rainbow

With her following albums, Carey began to take more initiative and control with her music, and started infusing more genres into her work. For Butterfly, she sought to work with other producers and writers other than Afanasieff, such as Sean Combs, Q-Tip, Missy Elliott and Jean Claude Oliver and Samuel Barnes from Trackmasters. During the album's recording, Carey and Mottola separated, with Carey citing it as her way of achieving freedom, and a new lease on life. Aside from the album's different approach, critics took notice of Carey's altered style of singing, which she described as breathy vocals. Her new-found style of singing was met with mixed reception; some critics felt this was a sign of maturity, that she did not feel the need to always show off her upper range, while others felt it was a sign of her weakening and waning voice. The album's lead single, "Honey", and its accompanying music video, introduced a more overtly sexual image than Carey had ever demonstrated, and furthered reports of her freedom from Mottola. Carey believed that her image was not "that much of a departure from what I've done in the past [...] It's not like I went psycho and thought I would be a rapper. Personally, this album is about doing whatever the hell I wanted to do." Reviews for Butterfly were generally positive: Rolling Stone wrote, "It's not as if Carey has totally dispensed with her old saccharine, Houston-style balladry [...] but the predominant mood of 'Butterfly' is one of coolly erotic reverie." AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine described Carey's vocals as "sultrier and more controlled than ever," and heralded Butterfly as one of her "best records and illustrates that Carey continues to improve and refine her music, which makes her a rarity among her '90s peers.'" The album was a commercial success, although not to the degree of her previous albums Mariah Carey, Music Box and Daydream.

Carey began developing other projects during the late 1990s. On April 14, 1998, Carey partook in the VH1 Divas benefit concert, where she sang alongside Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Gloria Estefan, and Carole King. Carey had begun developing a film project All That Glitters, later re-titled to simply Glitter, and wrote songs for other projects, such as Men in Black (1997) and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). After Glitter fell into developmental hell, Carey postponed the project, and began writing material for a new album. Sony Music executives wanted her to prepare a greatest hits collection in time for the holiday season. They wanted to release an album that featured her number one singles in the United States, and her international chart toppers on the European versions, without any new material, while Carey felt that a compilation album should reflect on her most personal songs, not just her most commercial. The album, titled #1's (1998), featured a duet with Whitney Houston, "When You Believe", which was included on the soundtrack for The Prince of Egypt (1998). #1's became a phenomenon in Japan, selling over one million copies in its opening week, making Carey as the only international artist to accomplish this feat. It sold over 3.25 million copies in Japan after only the first three months, and holds the record as the best-selling album by a non-Asian artist.

During the spring of 1999, Carey began working on the final album per her record contract with Sony. However, due to the pressure and the awkward relationship Carey had developed with Sony, she completed the album in a period of three months in the summer of 1999, quicker than any of her other albums. Titled Rainbow (1999), the album found Carey once again working with a new array of music producers and songwriters, such as Jay-Z and DJ Clue?. Carey also wrote two ballads with David Foster and Diane Warren, whom she used to replace Afanasieff. Rainbow was released on November 2, 1999, to the highest first week sales of her career at the time, however debuting at number two on the Billboard 200. In the meantime Carey's troubled relationship with Columbia grew, as they halted promotion after the album's first two singles. They felt Rainbow did not have any strong single to be released, whereas Carey wanted to release a ballad. This led to a very public feud, as Carey began posting messages on her website, telling fans inside information on the dispute, as well as instructing them to request "Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)" on radio stations. Ultimately, the song was only given a very limited and low-promotion release. Critical reception of Rainbow was generally enthusiastic, with the Sunday Herald saying that the album "sees her impressively tottering between soul ballads and collaborations with R&B heavyweights like Snoop Doggy Dogg and Usher [...] It's a polished collection of pop-soul." Though a commercial success, Rainbow became Carey's lowest selling album to that point in her career.

2001–2004: Personal and professional struggles, Glitter and Charmbracelet

After she received Billboard's Artist of the Decade Award and the World Music Award for Best-Selling Female Artist of the Millennium, Carey parted from Columbia and signed an estimated $100 million, five-album recording contract with Virgin Records America (EMI Records) in April 2001. Carey was given full conceptual and creative control over the project. She opted to record an album partly mixed with 1980s influenced disco and other similar genres, in order to go hand-in-hand with the film's setting. She often stated that Columbia had regarded her as a commodity, with her separation from Mottola exacerbating her relations with label executives. Just a few months later, in July 2001, it was widely reported that Carey had suffered a physical and emotional breakdown. She had left messages on her website that complained of being overworked, and her three-year relationship with the singer Luis Miguel ended. In an interview the following year, she said, "I was with people who didn't really know me and I had no personal assistant. I'd do interviews all day long and get two hours of sleep a night, if that." Due to the pressure from the media, her heavy work schedule and the split from Miguel, Carey began posting a series of disturbing messages on her official website, and displayed erratic behavior on several live promotional outings. On July 19, 2001, Carey made a surprise appearance on the MTV program Total Request Live (TRL). As the show's host Carson Daly began taping following a commercial break, Carey came out pushing an ice cream cart while wearing a large men's shirt, and began a striptease, in which she shed her shirt to reveal a tight yellow and green ensemble. While she later revealed that Daly was aware of her presence in the building prior to her appearance, Carey's appearance on TRL garnered strong media attention. Only days later, Carey began posting irregular voice notes and messages on her official website: "I'm trying to understand things in life right now and so I really don't feel that I should be doing music right now. What I'd like to do is just a take a little break or at least get one night of sleep without someone popping up about a video. All I really want is [to] just be me and that's what I should have done in the first place ... I don't say this much but guess what, I don't take care of myself." Following the quick removal of the messages, Berger commented that Carey had been "obviously exhausted and not thinking clearly" when she posted the letters.

On July 26, she was suddenly hospitalized, citing "extreme exhaustion" and a "physical and emotional breakdown." Carey was admitted to an undisclosed hospital in Connecticut, and remained hospitalized and under doctor's care for two weeks, followed by an extended absence from the public. Following the heavy media coverage surrounding Carey's publicized breakdown and hospitalization, Virgin Records America and 20th Century Fox delayed the release of both Glitter, as well as its soundtrack of the same name. When discussing the project's weak commercial reaction, Carey blamed both her frame of mind during the time of its release, its postponement, as well as the soundtrack having been released on September 11. Critics panned Glitter, as well as its accompanying soundtrack; both were unsuccessful commercially. The accompanying soundtrack album, Glitter, became Carey's lowest-selling album to that point. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch dismissed it as "an absolute mess that'll go down as an annoying blemish on a career that, while not always critically heralded, was at least nearly consistently successful." Following the negative cloud that was enveloping Carey's personal life at the time, as well as the project's poor reception, her $100 million five-album record deal with Virgin Records America (EMI Records) was bought out for $50 million. Soon after, Carey flew to Capri, Italy for a period of five months, in which she began writing material for her new album, stemming from all the personal experiences she had endured throughout the past year. Carey later said that her time at Virgin was "a complete and total stress-fest [...] I made a total snap decision which was based on money and I never make decisions based on money. I learned a big lesson from that." Later that year, she signed a contract with Island Records, valued at more than $24 million, and launched the record label MonarC. To add further to Carey's emotional burdens, her father, with whom she had little contact since childhood, died of cancer that year.

In 2002, Carey was cast in the independent film, WiseGirls, alongside Mira Sorvino and Melora Walters, who co-starred as waitresses at a mobster-operated restaurant. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and received generally negative critical response, though Carey's portrayal of the character was praised; Roger Friedman of Fox News referred to her as "a Thelma Ritter for the new millennium," and wrote, "Her line delivery is sharp and she manages to get the right laughs." Later that year, Carey performed the American national anthem to rave reviews at the Super Bowl XXXVI at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Towards the end of 2002, Carey released her next studio album Charmbracelet, which she said marked "a new lease on life" for her. Though released in the wake of Glitter and Carey's return to the music scene, sales of Charmbracelet were moderate and the quality of Carey's vocals came under criticism. Joan Anderson from The Boston Globe declared the album "the worst of her career, and revealed a voice [that is] no longer capable of either gravity-defying gymnastics or soft coos," while AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine expressed similar sentiments and wrote, "What is a greater problem is that Mariah's voice is shot, sounding in tatters throughout the record. She can no longer coo or softly croon nor can she perform her trademark gravity-defying vocal runs."

In April 2003, Carey announced she would be touring later in the year. The Charmbracelet World Tour: An Intimate Evening with Mariah Carey, spanned North America and East Asia over three months, generally playing in smaller venues rather than arenas. Throughout the United States, the shows were done in theaters, and something more Broadway-influenced, "It's much more intimate so you'll feel like you had an experience. You experience a night with me." However, while smaller productions were booked throughout the tour's stateside leg, Carey performed at stadiums in Asia and Europe, performing for a crowd of over 35,000 in Manila, 50,000 in Malaysia, and to over 70,000 people in China. In the United Kingdom, it became Carey's first tour to feature shows outside London, booking arena stops in Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester. The tour garnered generally positive reviews from music critics and concert goers, with many complimenting the quality of Carey's live vocals, as well as the production as a whole.

2005–2007: Resurgence with The Emancipation of Mimi

Throughout 2004, Carey focused on composing material for her tenth studio album, The Emancipation of Mimi (2005). The album found Carey working predominantly with Jermaine Dupri, as well as Bryan-Michael Cox, Manuel Seal, The Neptunes and Kanye West. The album topped the charts in the United States, becoming Carey's fifth number-one album and first since Butterfly (1997), and was warmly accepted by critics. Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian defined it as "cool, focused and urban [... some of] the first Mariah Carey tunes in years which I wouldn't have to be paid to listen to again," while USA Today's Elysa Gardner wrote, "The ballads and midtempo numbers that truly reflect the renewed confidence of a songbird who has taken her shots and kept on flying." The album's second single, "We Belong Together", became a "career re-defining" song for Carey, at a point when many critics had considered her career over. Music critics heralded the song as her "return to form," as well as the "return of The Voice," while many felt it would revive "faith" in Carey's potential as a balladeer. "We Belong Together" broke several records in the United States and became Carey's sixteenth chart topper on the Billboard Hot 100. After staying at number one for fourteen non-consecutive weeks, the song became the second longest running number one song in US chart history, behind Carey's 1996 collaboration with Boyz II Men, "One Sweet Day". Billboard listed it as the "song of the decade" and the ninth most popular song of all time. Besides its chart success, the song broke several airplay records, and according to Nielsen BDS, gathered both the largest one-day and one-week audiences in history.

During the week of September 25, 2005, Carey set another record, becoming the first female to occupy the first two spots atop the Hot 100, as "We Belong Together" remained at number one, and her next single, "Shake It Off" moved into the number two spot (Ashanti had topped the chart in 2002 while being a "featured" singer on the number two single). On the Billboard Hot 100 Year-end Chart of 2005, the song was declared the number one song, a career first for Carey. Billboard listed "We Belong Together" ninth on The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs and was declared the most popular song of the 2000s decade by Billboard.

The Emancipation of Mimi earned ten Grammy Award nominations: eight in 2006 for the original release (the most received by Carey in a single year), and two in 2007 for the Ultra Platinum Edition (from which "Don't Forget About Us" became her seventeenth number-one hit). Carey won Best Contemporary R&B Album and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song for "We Belong Together". The Emancipation of Mimi was the best-selling album in the United States in 2005, with nearly five million units sold. It was the first album by a solo female artist to become the year's best-selling album since Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill in 1996. At the end of 2005, the IFPI reported that The Emancipation of Mimi had sold more than 7.7 million copies globally, and was the second-best-selling album of the year after Coldplay's X&Y. To date, The Emancipation of Mimi has sold over 12 million copies worldwide.

In support of the album, Carey embarked on her first headlining tour in three years, named The Adventures of Mimi after a "Carey-centric fan's" music diary. The tour spanned 40 dates, with 32 in the United States and Canada, two in Africa, and six in Japan. It received warm reception from music critics and concert goers, many of which celebrated the quality of Carey's live vocals, as well as the show as a whole. Carey played to about 60,000 fans in the two shows in Tunis. A live recording titled The Adventures of Mimi DVD was released in November 2007 internationally and December 2007 in the U.S.

2008–2009: E=MC², Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, and Precious

By spring 2007, Carey had begun to work on her eleventh studio album, E=MC², in a private villa in Anguilla. Although E=MC² was well received by most critics, some of them criticized it for being very similar to the formula used on The Emancipation of Mimi. Two weeks before the album's release, "Touch My Body", the record's lead single, reached the top position on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Carey's eighteenth number one and making her the solo artist with the most number one singles in United States history, pushing her past Elvis Presley into second place according to the magazine's revised methodology. Carey is second only to The Beatles, who have twenty number-one singles. Additionally, it gave Carey her 79th week atop the Hot 100, tying her with Presley as the artist with the most weeks at number one in the Billboard chart history."

E=MC² debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 463,000 copies sold, the biggest opening week sales of her career. In 2008, Carey also played an aspiring singer named Krystal in Tennessee and had a cameo appearance in Adam Sandler's film You Don't Mess with the Zohan, playing herself. Since the album's release, Carey had planned to embark on an extensive tour in support of E=MC². However the tour was suddenly cancelled in early December 2008. Carey later stated that she had been pregnant during that time period, and suffered a miscarriage, hence she cancelled the tour. On January 20, 2009, Carey performed "Hero" at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball after Barack Obama was sworn as the first African-American president of the United States. On July 7, 2009, Carey – alongside Trey Lorenz – performed her version of The Jackson 5 song "I'll Be There" at the memorial service for Michael Jackson.

In 2009, she appeared as a social worker in Precious, the movie adaptation of the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. The film garnered mostly positive reviews from critics, also for Carey's performance. Variety described her acting as "pitch-perfect." In January 2010, Carey won the Breakthrough Actress Performance Award for her role in Precious at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. On September 25, 2009, Carey's twelfth studio album, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, was released. Reception for the album was mostly mixed; Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called it "her most interesting album in a decade," while Jon Caramanica from The New York Times criticized Carey's vocal performances, decrying her overuse of her softer vocal registers at the expense of her more powerful lower and upper registers. Commercially, the album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, and became the lowest-selling studio album of her career. The album's lead single, "Obsessed", debuted at number eleven and peaked at number seven on the chart, and became Carey's 27th US top-ten hit, tying her with Elton John and Janet Jackson as the fifth most top-ten hits. The album's follow-up single, a cover of Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is", managed to break airplay records in Brazil. The song spent 27 weeks atop the Brasil Hot 100 Airplay, making it the longest running song in the chart's history.

On December 31, 2009, Carey embarked her seventh concert tour, Angels Advocate Tour, which visited the United States and Canada and ended on September 26, 2010. A planned remix album of Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel; titled Angels Advocate was slated for a March 30, 2010 release, but was eventually cancelled.

2010–2014: Merry Christmas II You and Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse

Following the cancellation of Angels Advocate, it was announced that Carey would return to the studio to start work on her thirteenth studio album. It was later revealed that it would be her second Christmas album, and follow-up to Merry Christmas. Longtime collaborators for the project included Jermaine Dupri, Johntá Austin, Bryan-Michael Cox, and Randy Jackson, as well as new collaborators such as Marc Shaiman. The release date for the album, titled Merry Christmas II You, was November 2, 2010; the track list included six new songs as well as a remix of "All I Want for Christmas Is You". Merry Christmas II You debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 with sales of 56,000 copies, becoming Carey's 16th top ten album in the United States. The album debuted at number one on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making it only the second Christmas album to top this chart.

In May 2010, Carey dropped out of her planned appearance in For Colored Girls, the film adaptation of the play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, citing medical reasons. In February 2011, Carey announced that she had officially began writing new material for her upcoming fourteenth studio album. Carey recorded a duet with Tony Bennett for his Duets II album, titled "When Do The Bells Ring For Me?" In October 2011, Carey announced that she re-recorded "All I Want for Christmas Is You" with Justin Bieber as a duet for his Christmas album, Under the Mistletoe. In November 2011, Carey was included in the remix to the mixtape single "Warning" by Uncle Murda; the remix also features 50 Cent and Young Jeezy. That same month, Carey released a duet with John Legend titled "When Christmas Comes", originally part of Merry Christmas II You.

On March 1, 2012, Carey performed at New York City's Gotham Hall; her first time performing since pregnancy. She also performed a three song set at a special fundraiser for US President Barack Obama held in New York's Plaza Hotel. A new song titled "Bring It On Home", which Carey wrote specifically for the event to show her support behind Obama's re-election campaign, was also performed. In August 2012, she released a stand alone single, "Triumphant (Get 'Em)", featuring American rappers Rick Ross and Meek Mill and co-written and co-produced by Carey, Jermaine Dupri, and Bryan-Michael Cox. Carey joined the judging panel of American Idol season twelve as Jennifer Lopez's replacement, joining Randy Jackson, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban. In November 2013, she explained about hating to work at American Idol adding, "It was like going to work every day in hell with Satan," referring to her on-set squabbles with Minaj. Carey appeared in Lee Daniels' 2013 film The Butler, about a White House butler who served eight American presidents over the course of three decades. Carey made guest voice-star as a redneck character on the adult animated series American Dad! on November 24, 2013.

In February 2013 Carey recorded and released a song called "Almost Home", for the soundtrack of the Walt Disney Studios film Oz the Great and Powerful. The video was directed by photographer David LaChapelle. News started coming around about the singer's fourteenth studio album. Some of the people that Carey worked with on the album included: DJ Clue?, Randy Jackson, Q-Tip, R. Kelly, David Morales, Loris Holland, Stevie J, James Fauntleroy II, Ray Angry, Afanasieff, Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox, James "Big Jim" Wright, Hit-Boy, The-Dream, Da Brat, and Rodney Jerkins. Carey told Billboard: "It's about making sure I have tons of good music, because at the end of the day that's the most important thing... There are a lot more raw ballads than people might expect...there are also uptempo and signature-type songs that represent [my] different facets as an artist."

The lead single, "Beautiful" featuring singer Miguel, was released on May 6, 2013, and peaked at number 15 on the Hot 100. Carey taped a performance of "Beautiful" along with a medley of her greatest hits on May 15, 2013; the taping aired on the American Idol finale the following day. On October 14, 2013, Carey announced that the album's former title track has been chosen as the second single; it premiered via Facebook on November 11, 2013. During a Q&A session following the song's release, Carey gave an update about the album, stating: "Now I've been inspired to add two more songs, so we're almost there. I can't even express this properly but I feel like this is gonna be my favorite album." Following another song release, "You're Mine (Eternal)", it was announced that The Art of Letting Go would no longer be the title of the album. After the final name was announced, Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse was released on May 27, 2014.

In October 2014, Carey announced All I Want For Christmas Is You, A Night of Joy & Festivity, an annual residency show at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. The first leg included six shows, running from December 15–22, 2014. Carey announced the second leg in October 2015. The second leg ran for 8 shows, from December 8–18, 2015.

2015–2017: Las Vegas residency, television and film projects

On January 30, 2015, it was announced that Carey had left Universal Music Group's Def Jam Recordings to reunite with L.A. Reid and Sony Music via Epic Records. Carey also announced her new #1 to Infinity residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas the same month. To coincide with the residency, Carey released #1 to Infinity, a greatest hits compilation album containing all of her eighteen Billboard Hot 100 number one singles at the time, along with a new recording, "Infinity", which was released as a single on April 27. In 2015 Carey had her directorial debut for the Hallmark Channel Christmas movie A Christmas Melody, in which she also performed as one of the main characters. Filming for the project took place during October 2015. In December 2015, Carey announced The Sweet Sweet Fantasy Tour which spanned a total of 27-dates beginning in March 2016, marking the first time the singer had done a significant tour of mainland Europe in 13 years. Four stops included shows in South Africa. The tour grossed 30.3 million dollars.

On March 15, 2016, Carey announced that she was filming Mariah's World, a docu-series for the E! network documenting her Sweet Sweet Fantasy tour and her wedding planning process. Carey told The New York Times, "I thought it would be a good opportunity to kind of, like, show my personality and who I am, even though I feel like my real fans have an idea of who I am... A lot of people have misperceptions about this and that." The series premiered on December 4, 2016. Carey guest starred on the musical drama Empire, as a superstar singer named Kitty and sung the song "Infamous" featuring Jussie Smollett. On December 5, 2016, Carey participated in the VH1 Divas Holiday: Unsilent Night benefit concert, alongside Vanessa Williams, Chaka Khan, Patti Labelle, and Teyana Taylor. On December 31, 2016, Carey's performance on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve in Times Square received worldwide attention after technical difficulties caused Carey's in-ear monitors to malfunction, resulting in what The New York Times referred to as a "performance train wreck." The singer cited her inability to hear the music without in-ear auditory feedback as the cause for the mishap. Carey's representatives and Dick Clark Productions placed blame on each other.

On February 3, 2017, Carey released the single "I Don't" featuring YG. Later that month, she voiced the Mayor of Gotham City in the animated film The Lego Batman Movie. In July 2017, Carey made a cameo in the comedy film Girls Trip, starring Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Regina Hall. The same month, Carey embarked on a tour with Lionel Richie, titled, All the Hits Tour. Carey was also featured in the official remix for French Montana's single "Unforgettable", alongside Swae Lee. In October 2017, she released a new soundtrack single, "The Star", for the movie of the same name. Carey also developed an animated Christmas film, titled Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You, for which she recorded an original song called "Lil' Snowman." The film was released direct-to-video on November 14, 2017. In the same month, the singer resumed her All I Want for Christmas Is You, a Night of Joy and Festivity concert series, which for the first time visited other countries including England and France. On December 31, 2017, the singer returned to perform on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve after the technical difficulties that hindered her previous performance, in what The New York Times described as a "made-for-television act of pop culture redemption".

2018–2019: Caution, continued touring and comeback with Merry Christmas 25

In 2018, Carey signed a worldwide deal with Live Nation Entertainment. The first commitment out of the deal was her new Las Vegas residency, The Butterfly Returns, which was launched in July 2018 to critical acclaim. Its first 12 shows in 2018 grossed $3.6 million, with dates later extending into 2019 and 2020. Following the residency, Carey embarked on her Mariah Carey: Live in Concert tour in Asia and returned to Europe with her All I Want for Christmas Is You concert series. While on tour, a representative from Sony Music Asia Pacific presented Carey with a certificate for achieving 1.6 billion sales units in Asia Pacific. She also released professional live footage of her performance of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" during one of her European Christmas tour shows on YouTube.

In September 2018, Carey announced plans to release her fifteenth studio album later in the year. The project was announced alongside the release of a new song titled "GTFO", which she performed on September 21, 2018, when she headlined the 2018 iHeartRadio Music Festival. The album's lead single, "With You", was released in October and performed for the first time at the American Music Awards of 2018. The single became Carey's highest-charting non-holiday song on the US Adult Contemporary chart since "We Belong Together", and the third highest-charting song of her career on the Adult R&B Songs chart, and became a top 10 single in Hungary. A second single, "A No No", was released in March 2019 and peaked at number 17 at US R&B Digital Song Sales. The album, titled Caution, was released on November 16, 2018, and received universal acclaim from critics. Caution was described as a "fine-tuning" of Carey's previous work and was praised for its freshness which made it "pleasingly defiant." By December 2018, the album had been featured on numerous year-end lists by music critics and publications.

In February 2019, Carey commenced the Caution World Tour in support of the album. Reviewing the singer's three-day residency at the Royal Albert Hall, Michael Cragg from The Guardian described Carey's "incredible, playful performances" as a testament to her status as a "gold-plated pop diva". Similarly, Kate Solomon from The Daily Telegraph acclaimed the shows as being a "a surreal but wildly enjoyable showcase of a brighter, more fun side of the pop icon".

The singer also engaged in a series of both business and television ventures. On May 29, 2019, the film Always Be My Maybe, inspired by the song "Always Be My Baby", was published on Netflix. The film received generally favorable reviews from critics and was a commercial success, having been viewed by over 32 million households within its first four weeks of release. On August 25, 2019, Carey signed a $12 million contract with the Walkers crisps brand as part of their Christmas campaign. Carey also appeared in a Walkers commercial, which was released on November 2, 2019; it was praised by critics for its humor. In addition to this, Carey released "In the Mix", the theme song for the TV series "Mixed-ish" on September 18, 2019. It received widespread acclaim for the "uplifting message" of Carey's song-writing, with the critic Amanda Mitchell describing the track as being "a love letter to her biracial identity".

On November 1, 2019, Carey re-released her holiday album Merry Christmas for its 25th anniversary. The album package included the original album and a another disc which include live performances from Carey's 1994 concert at St. John the Divine Church, several tracks from Merry Christmas II You, as well as other standalone singles such as "Lil Snowman" and "The Star". In conjunction with this, she organized a gift guide with Amazon, and partnered for an exclusive Christmas ornament with Swarovski. The singer also extended her annual All I Want For Christmas is You concert series with series of performances in the US, including a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden.

On December 5, 2019, it was announced that a mini-documentary charting the creation and subsequent cultural legacy of "All I Want for Christmas Is You" was to be produced and broadcast on Amazon Music; it aired later that month. Peaking at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time the same year, the song ended up giving Carey her nineteenth chart-topper in the USA, which not only extended her record as being the solo artist with the most number one singles on the Hot 100, but also made the singer the only artist in history to have a number-one song in four consecutive decades.

2020–present: Songwriter's Hall of Fame induction and I Had A Vision of Love

In January 2020, it was announced that Carey was to be inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame during that year's ceremony on June 11th 2020 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. That same month, it was announced that the singer would release her memoirs, titled I Had A Vision of Love, on September 17th 2020, with the book being distributed through both Pan Macmillan and Henry Holt and Company.

Other activities

Declining offers to appear in commercials in the United States during her early career, Carey was not involved in brand marketing initiatives until 2006, when she participated in endorsements for Intel Centrino personal computers and launched a jewelry and accessories line for teenagers, Glamorized, in American Claire's and Icing stores. During this period, as part of a partnership with Pepsi and Motorola, Carey recorded and promoted a series of exclusive ringtones, including "Time of Your Life". She signed a licensing deal with the cosmetics company Elizabeth Arden, and in 2007, she released her own fragrance, "M." The Elizabeth Arden deal has netted her $150 million. On November 29, 2010, she debuted a collection on HSN, which included jewelry, shoes and fragrances. In November 2011, Carey's net worth was valued at more than $500 million. Business Insider estimates her net worth to be valued at more than $520 million, as of September 2018.

Philanthropy

Carey is a philanthropist who has been involved with several charitable organizations. She became associated with the Fresh Air Fund in the early 1990s, and is the co-founder of a camp located in Fishkill, New York, that enables inner-city youth to embrace the arts and introduces them to career opportunities. The camp was called Camp Mariah "for her generous support and dedication to Fresh Air children," and she received a Congressional Horizon Award for her youth-related charity work. Carey has continued her direct involvement with Camp Mariah, and by 2019 the executive director of The Fresh Air Fund reported that "...the kids who have gone to Camp Mariah have higher graduation rates out of high school and college.

Carey also donated royalties from her hits "Hero" and "One Sweet Day" to charities. She is well-known nationally for her work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation in granting the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses, and in November 2006 she was awarded the Foundation's Wish Idol for her "extraordinary generosity and her many wish granting achievements." Carey has volunteered for the Police Athletic League of New York City and contributed to the obstetrics department of New York Presbyterian Hospital Cornell Medical Center. A percentage of the sales of MTV Unplugged was donated to various other charities. In 2008, Carey was named Hunger Ambassador of the World Hunger Relief Movement. In February 2010, the song, "100%", which was originally written and recorded for the film, Precious, was used as one of the theme songs for the 2010 Winter Olympics, with all money proceeds going to Team USA. Carey is also a supporter and advocate for the LGBT community, and was honored with the "Ally Award" at the 27th GLAAD Media Awards in May 2016. The award is presented to media figures who have "consistently used their platform to support and advance LGBT equality and acceptance". In December 2017, PETA rewarded Carey with the 'Angel for Animal's Award' for "encouraging families to adopt from their local shelter” in her animated Christmas film, titled Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You.

One of Carey's most high-profile benefit concert appearances was on VH1's 1998 Divas Live special, during which she performed alongside other female singers in support of the Save the Music Foundation. The concert was a ratings success, and Carey participated in the Divas 2000 special. In 2007, the Save the Music Foundation honored Carey at their tenth gala event for her support towards the foundation since its inception. She appeared at the America: A Tribute to Heroes nationally televised fundraiser in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and in December 2001, she performed before peacekeeping troops in Kosovo. Carey hosted the CBS television special At Home for the Holidays, which documented real-life stories of adopted children and foster families. In 2005, Carey performed for Live 8 in London and at the Hurricane Katrina relief telethon "Shelter from the Storm." In August 2008, Carey and other singers recorded the charity single, "Just Stand Up" produced by Babyface and L. A. Reid, to support Stand Up to Cancer.

Controversies

In 2008, Carey performed in a New Year's Eve concert for the family of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, something she later claimed to "feel horrible and embarrassed to have participated in." In March 2011, Carey's representative Cindi Berger stated that royalties for the song "Save The Day", which was written for her fourteenth studio album, would be donated to charities that create awareness to human rights issues to make amends for the Gadaffi error. Berger also said that "Mariah has and continues to donate her time, money and countless hours of personal service to many organizations both here and abroad." "Save The Day" was never released.

In 2013, human rights activists criticized Carey for performing in a concert for Angola's "father-daughter kleptocracy" and accused her of accepting "dictator cash."

In January 2019, Carey controversially performed in Saudi Arabia. In the United Kingdom, Owen Jones of The Guardian found her agreement to perform there questionable as "Carey has famously always had a devoted gay fanbase: in Saudi Arabia, homosexuality is punishable by death." Prior to this, Carey was under pressure to cancel this performance not only because of the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but also because of the country's imprisonment of feminists. In a statement to the Associated Press, Carey's publicist stated that when “presented with the offer to perform for an international and mixed gender audience in Saudi Arabia, Mariah accepted the opportunity as a positive step towards the dissolution of gender segregation. [...] As the first female international artist to perform in Saudi Arabia, Mariah recognizes the cultural significance of this event and will continue to support global efforts towards equality for all.”

Artistry

Influences

Carey has said that from childhood she has been influenced by Billie Holiday, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and R&B and soul musicians such as Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin. Her music contains strong influences of gospel music, and she credits the Clark Sisters, Shirley Caesar and Edwin Hawkins as the most influential in her early years. When Carey incorporated hip hop into her sound, speculation arose that she was making an attempt to take advantage of the genre's popularity, but she told Newsweek, "People just don't understand. I grew up with this music." She has expressed appreciation for rappers such as the Sugarhill Gang, Eric B. & Rakim, the Wu-Tang Clan, The Notorious B.I.G. and Mobb Deep, with whom she collaborated on the single "The Roof (Back in Time)" (1998). Carey was heavily influenced by Minnie Riperton, and began experimenting with the whistle register due to her original practice of the range. She has also called Marilyn Monroe one of her idols.

During Carey's career, her vocal and musical style, along with her level of success, has been compared to Whitney Houston, who she has also cited as an influence, and Celine Dion. Carey and her peers, according to Garry Mulholland, are "the princesses of wails [...] virtuoso vocalists who blend chart-oriented pop with mature MOR torch song." Author and writer Lucy O'Brien attributed the comeback of Barbra Streisand's "old-fashioned showgirl" to Carey and Dion, and described them and Houston as "groomed, airbrushed and overblown to perfection." Carey's musical transition and use of more revealing clothing during the late 1990s were, in part, initiated to distance herself from this image, and she subsequently said that most of her early work was "schmaltzy MOR." Some have noted that unlike Houston and Dion, Carey writes and produces her own songs.

Musical style

Love is the subject of the majority of Carey's lyrics, although she has written about themes such as racism, social alienation, death, world hunger, and spirituality. She has said that much of her work is partly autobiographical, but Time magazine wrote: "If only Mariah Carey's music had the drama of her life. Her songs are often sugary and artificial—NutraSweet soul. But her life has passion and conflict," applying it to the first stages of her career. He commented that as her albums progressed, so too her songwriting and music blossomed into more mature and meaningful material. Jim Faber of the New York Daily News, made similar comments, "For Carey, vocalizing is all about the performance, not the emotions that inspired it. Singing, to her, represents a physical challenge, not an emotional unburdening." While reviewing Music Box, Stephen Holden from Rolling Stone commented that Carey sang with "sustained passion," while Arion Berger of Entertainment Weekly wrote that during some vocal moments, Carey becomes "too overwhelmed to put her passion into words." In 2001, The Village Voice wrote in regards to what they considered Carey's "centerless ballads," writing, "Carey's Strawberry Shortcake soul still provides the template with which teen-pop cuties draw curlicues around those centerless [Diane] Warren ballads [.....] it's largely because of [Blige] that the new R&B demands a greater range of emotional expression, smarter poetry, more from-the-gut testifying, and less [sic] unnecessary notes than the squeaky-clean and just plain squeaky Mariah era. Nowadays it's the Christina Aguileras and Jessica Simpsons who awkwardly oversing, while the women with roof-raising lung power keep it in check when tune or lyric demands."

Carey's output makes use of electronic instruments such as drum machines, keyboards and synthesizers. Many of her songs contain piano-driven melodies, as she was given piano lessons when she was six years old. Carey said that she cannot read sheet music and prefers to collaborate with a pianist when composing her material, but feels that it is easier to experiment with faster and less-conventional melodies and chord progressions using this technique. While Carey learned to play the piano at a young age, and incorporates several ranges of production and instrumentation into her music, she has maintained that her voice has always been her most important asset: "My voice is my instrument; it always has been." Carey began commissioning remixes of her material early in her career and helped to spearhead the practice of recording entirely new vocals for remixes. Disc jockey David Morales has collaborated with Carey on several occasions, starting with "Dreamlover" (1993), which popularized the tradition of remixing R&B songs into house records, and which Slant magazine named one of the greatest dance songs of all time. From "Fantasy" (1995) onward, Carey enlisted both hip-hop and house producers to re-structure her album compositions. Entertainment Weekly included two remixes of "Fantasy" on a list of Carey's greatest recordings compiled in 2005: a National Dance Music Award-winning remix produced by Morales, and a Sean Combs production featuring rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard. The latter has been credited with popularizing the R&B/hip-hop collaboration trend that has continued into the 2000s, through artists such as Ashanti and Beyoncé. Combs said that Carey "knows the importance of mixes, so you feel like you're with an artist who appreciates your work—an artist who wants to come up with something with you."

Voice and timbre

Carey possesses a five-octave vocal range, and has the ability to reach notes beyond the 7th octave. Referred to as the "songbird supreme" by the Guinness World Records, she was ranked first in a 2003 MTV and Blender magazine countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, as voted by fans and readers in an online poll. Carey said of the poll: "What it really means is voice of the MTV generation. Of course, it's an enormous compliment, but I don't feel that way about myself." She also placed second in Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists."

Regarding her voice type, Carey said that she is an alto, though several critics have described her as a Coloratura soprano. The singer claims that she has nodules in her vocal cords since childhood, due to which she can sing in a higher register than others. However, tiredness and sleep deprivation can affect her vocals due to the nodules, and Carey explained that she went through a lot of practice to maintain a balance during singing.

Jon Pareles of The New York Times described Carey's lower register as a "rich, husky alto" that extends to "dog-whistle high notes." Additionally, towards the late 1990s, Carey began incorporating breathy vocals into her material. Tim Levell from the BBC News described her vocals as "sultry close-to-the-mic breathiness," while USA Today's Elysa Gardner wrote "it's impossible to deny the impact her vocal style, a florid blend of breathy riffing and resonant belting, has had on today's young pop and R&B stars."

Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker adds her timbre possesses various colors, saying, "Carey's sound changes with nearly every line, mutating from a steely tone to a vibrating growl and then to a humid, breathy coo. Her wide vocal range allows Carey to take melodies from alto bottom notes to coloratura soprano upper register." Carey also possesses a "whisper register." In an interview with the singer, Ron Givens of Entertainment Weekly described it this way, "first, a rippling, soulful ooh comes rolling effortlessly from her throat: alto. Then, after a quick breath, she goes for the stratosphere, with a sound that nearly changes the barometric pressure in the room. In one brief swoop, she seems to squeal and roar at the same time."

Her sense of pitch is admired and Jon Pareles adds "she can linger over sensual turns, growl with playful confidence, syncopate like a scat singer... with startlingly exact pitch."

Legacy

Carey's vocal style, as well as her singing ability, have significantly impacted popular and contemporary music. She has consistently been cited as one of the greatest and most influential vocalists of all time. As music critic G. Brown from The Denver Post wrote, "For better or worse, Mariah Carey's five-octave range and melismatic style have influenced a generation of pop singers." According to Rolling Stone, "Her mastery of melisma, the fluttering strings of notes that decorate songs like 'Vision of Love', inspired the entire American Idol vocal school, for better or worse, and virtually every other female R&B singer since the Nineties." Jody Rosen of Slate wrote of Carey's influence in modern music, calling her the most influential vocal stylist of the last two decades, the person who made rococo melismatic singing. Rosen further exemplified Carey's influence by drawing a parallel with American Idol, which to her, "often played out as a clash of melisma-mad Mariah wannabes. And, today, nearly 20 years after Carey's debut, major labels continue to bet the farm on young stars such as the winner of Britain's X Factor show, Leona Lewis, with her Generation Next gloss on Mariah's big voice and big hair." New York Magazine's editor Roger Deckker further commented that "Whitney Houston may have introduced melisma (the vocally acrobatic style of lending a word an extra syllable or twenty) to the charts, but it was Mariah—with her jaw-dropping range—who made it into America's default sound." Deckker also added that "Every time you turn on American Idol, you are watching her children." As Professor Katherine L. Meizel noted in her book, The Mediation of Identity Politics in American Idol, "Carey's influence not just stops in the emulation of melisma or her singing amongst the wannabe's, it's also her persona, her diva, her stardom which inspires them.... a pre-fame conic look."

In addition to her vocal ability, Carey has been credited for her role and impact as a songwriter and producer. Upon honoring her with the "Icon Award" at their eponymous awards ceremony in 2012, Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) described the singer's songwriting as having a "unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers". Jeffrey Ingold of Vice hailed Carey's lyricism as being "among the most verbose in pop music", praising her ability to convey "nuanced stories about love, loss, sex, race and abuse" within her songs. In January 2020, it was announced that Carey was to be inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame during that year's ceremony on June 11th 2020 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.

Numerous historians and social scientists have also credited Carey's outspokenness on her own multiracial heritage for facilitating public discourse surrounding race relations in the United States, as well as the advent of intersectional feminism, during the 1990s. As noted by Professor Michael Eric Dyson in his book, Between God and Gangsta Rap: Bearing Witness to Black Culture, Carey's "refusal to bow to public pressure" surrounding the nature of her ethnicity exposed "the messy, sometimes arbitrary, politics of definition and categorisation" and "the racial contradictions at the centre of contemporary pop music" at the time. Sika Dagbovie-Mullins of Florida Atlantic University further credited Carey as being a trailblazing "multiracial heroine", remarking upon her ability to both exploit and critique "the various manifestations of the mulatta stereotype" throughout her career.

Among the hip hop, pop, and R&B artists who have cited Carey as an influence are Aneeka,, Ari Lennox, Ariana Grande, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Celine Dion, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Bridgit Mendler, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Rihanna, Grimes, Kelela, Kelly Clarkson,, Kehlani, Kiana Lede, Nicki Minaj, Nelly Furtado,, Normani, Bonnie McKee, Leona Lewis, Brandy Norwood, Pink, Mary J. Blige, Melanie Fiona, Missy Elliott, Sam Smith, Hikaru Utada, Regine Velasquez, Sarah Geronimo, Jake Zyrus, Jordin Sparks, Justin Bieber, Jessica Sanchez, and Sandy.

According to Stevie Wonder: "When people talk about the great influential singers, they talk about Aretha, Whitney and Mariah. That's a testament to her talent. Her range is that amazing." Beyoncé credits Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal "runs" as a child, as well as helping her pursue a career as a musician. Rihanna has stated that Carey is one of her major influences and idol. Aguilera said in the early stages of her career that Carey was a big influence in her singing career and one of her idols. According to Pier Dominguez, author of Christina Aguilera: A star is made, Aguilera has stated how she loved listening to Whitney Houston, but it was Carey who had the biggest influence on her vocal styling. Carey's carefully choreographed image of a grown woman struck a chord with Aguilera. Her influence on Aguilera also grew from the fact that both are of mixed heritage. Philip Brasor, editor of The Japan Times, expressed how Carey's vocal and melismatic style even influenced Asian singers. He wrote that Japanese singer Hikaru Utada "sang what she heard, from the diaphragm and with her own take on the kind of melisma that became de rigueur in American pop after the ascendance of Mariah Carey."

In an article titled "Out With Mariah's Melisma, In With Kesha's Kick", writer David Browne of The New York Times discusses how the once-ubiquitous melisma pop style suddenly lost in favor of the now-ubiquitous autotune in which the former was heavily popularized by the likes of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. Browne had commented "But beginning two decades ago, melisma overtook pop in a way it hadn't before. Mariah Carey's debut hit from 1990, "Vision of Love", [set] the bar insanely high for notes stretched louder, longer and knottier than most pop fans had ever heard." Browne further added "A subsequent generation of singers, including Ms. Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé, built their careers around melisma. (Men like Brian McKnight and Tyrese also indulged in it, but women tended to dominate the form.)"

On a cultural level, Carey is seen as being synonymous with the Christmas and holiday season due to the lasting impact and popularity of her song "All I Want for Christmas Is You", as well as her 1994 album "Merry Christmas". The singer has been credited for turning the genre of Christmas music into a commercially viable format within the music industry, as well as a ubiquitous part of wider popular culture, so much so that she has been dubbed the "Queen of Christmas". The song is the 10th best-selling single of all time as of June 2019, with global sales of over 16 million copies and royalties exceeding $60 million. The album is credited as being the greatest selling Christmas album of all time. Both the song and album have been hailed as being "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon" by publications such as The New Yorker. Speaking to Vogue in 2015 about "All I Want For Christmas Is You", Elvis Duran stated that the song's appeal was based on the fact that it was "a modern song that could actually have been a hit back in the ’40s", praising its "timeless, classic quality". The success of the song, in particular, has led Carey to build what Billboard described as a "growing holiday mini-empire". The singer released a children's book, illustrated by Colleen Madden, in 2015. The book's text matches the lyrics to her song, "All I Want for Christmas Is You." The book went on to sell over 750,000 copies; Carey later released an animated family film based on the book and song in 2017. On November 24, 2019, the song was recognised with three awards by Guinness World Records, namely as being the record to generate the most streams on Spotify in a 24 hour period.

Commercially, Carey is credited for popularizing and redefining the practice of remixing within the music industry. In a 2019 article for MTV, Princess Gabbara hailed the singer as being "the queen of remixes", praising her ability to "satisfy pop, R&B, hip-hop, and EDM audiences" when doing so. Speaking to Billboard in 2019 for a profile of Carey's career, David Morales, who first collaborated with the singer on the Def Club Mix of her 1993 single "Dreamlover", commented on Carey's revolutionary role in the popularization of remixes: "Mariah opened up a whole other door, and not many people at that time were capable of that. When other big artists saw what I did with Mariah, they wanted that. She's how I got into the studio with Toni Braxton, Aretha Franklin, Seal and Donna Summer."

Carey is also credited for introducing R&B and hip hop into mainstream pop culture, and for popularizing rap as a featuring act through her post-1995 songs. Sasha Frere-Jones, editor of The New Yorker commented, "It became standard for R&B/hip-hop stars like Missy Elliott and Beyoncé, to combine melodies with rapped verses. And young white pop stars—including Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Christina Aguilera, and 'N Sync—have spent much of the past ten years making pop music that is unmistakably R&B." Moreover, Jones concludes that "[Carey's] idea of pairing a female songbird with the leading male MCs of hip-hop changed R&B and, eventually, all of pop. Although now anyone is free to use this idea, the success of The Emancipation of Mimi suggests that it still belongs to Carey." Judnick Mayard, writer of The Fader, wrote that in regarding of R&B and hip hop collaboration, "The champion of this movement is Mariah Carey." Mayard also expressed that "To this day ODB and Mariah may still be the best and most random hip hop collaboration of all time," citing that due to the record "Fantasy", "R&B and Hip-Hop were the best of step siblings." Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times wrote, "In the mid-1990s Ms. Carey pioneered a subgenre that some people call the thug-love duet. Nowadays clean-cut pop stars are expected to collaborate with roughneck rappers, but when Ms. Carey teamed up with Ol' Dirty Bastard, of the Wu-Tang Clan, for the 1995 hit "Fantasy (Remix)", it was a surprise, and a smash." In a review of her Greatest Hits album, Devon Powers of PopMatters writes that "She has influenced countless female vocalists after her. At 32, she is already a living legend—even if she never sings another note."

Personal life

Carey began dating Tommy Mottola while recording Music Box, and married him on June 5, 1993. After the release of Daydream and the success that followed, Carey began focusing on her personal life, which was a constant struggle at the time. Carey's relationship with Mottola began to deteriorate, due to their growing creative differences in terms of her albums, as well as his controlling nature. On May 30, 1997, the couple announced their separation, with their divorce finalized by the time Mottola remarried on December 2, 2000. Carey was in a three-year relationship with singer Luis Miguel from 1998 to 2001.

Carey met actor and comedian Nick Cannon while they shot her music video for her song "Bye Bye" on an island off the coast of Antigua. On April 30, 2008, Carey married Cannon in The Bahamas. At 35 weeks into her pregnancy, she gave birth to their fraternal twins, Moroccan and Monroe, on April 30, 2011 via Cesarean section. Monroe is named after Marilyn Monroe; Moroccan is named after the Moroccan-decor room in Carey's apartment where Cannon proposed to her. In August 2014, Cannon confirmed he and Carey had separated. He filed for divorce on December 12, 2014. It was finalized in 2016.

In 2015 Carey began dating Australian billionaire James Packer and, on January 21, 2016, she announced that they were engaged. By October, however, they had ended their engagement. On October 2016 she began dating American choreographer Bryan Tanaka.

Carey is an active Episcopalian. She stated in 2006: "I do believe that I have been born again in a lot of ways. I think what I've changed are my priorities and my relationships with God. I feel the difference when I don't have my private moments to pray. ... I'm a fighter, but I learned that I'm not in charge. Whatever God wants to happen is what's going to happen. I feel like I've had endless second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth chances. It's by the grace of God I'm still here." In April 2018, Carey opened up about her struggle with bipolar II disorder. She, self-reportedly, was diagnosed in 2001, but kept the diagnosis private. Recently, she has sought out treatment in the form of medication and therapy.

Honors and awards

Throughout Carey's career, she has collected many honors and awards, including the World Music Awards' Best Selling Female Artist of the Millennium, the Grammy's Best New Artist in 1991, and Billboard's Special Achievement Award for the Artist of the Decade during the 1990s. In a career spanning over 20 years, Carey has sold over 200 million records worldwide, making her one of the biggest-selling artists in music history. Carey is ranked as the best-selling female artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era, with over 52 million copies sold. Carey was ranked first in MTV and Blender magazine's 2003 countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, and was placed second in Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists." Aside from her voice, she has become known for her songwriting. Yahoo Music editor Jason Ankeny wrote, "She earned frequent comparison to rivals Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, but did them both one better by composing all of her own material." According to Billboard magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States. At the 2000 World Music Awards, Carey was given a Legend Award for being the "best-selling female pop artist of the millennium," as well as the "Best-selling artist of the 90s" in the United States, after releasing a series of albums of multiplatinum status in Asia and Europe, such as Music Box and Number 1's. She is also a recipient of the Chopard Diamond award in 2003, recognizing sales of over 100 million albums worldwide. Additionally, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) lists Carey as the third-best-selling female artist, with shipments of over 63 million units in the US. In Japan, Carey has the top four highest-selling albums of all time by a non-Asian artist.

Carey has spent 82 weeks at the number-one position on Billboard Hot 100, the greatest number for any artist in US chart history. On that same chart, she has accumulated 19 number-one singles, the most for any solo artist (and second after The Beatles). Carey has also had three songs debut at the top of the Hot 100 chart. In 1994, Carey released her holiday album Merry Christmas has sold over 15 million copies worldwide, and is the best-selling Christmas album of all time. It also produced the successful single "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which became the only holiday song and ringtone to reach multi-platinum status in the US. In Japan, #1's has sold over 3,250,000 copies and is the best-selling album of all time in Japan by a non-Asian artist. Her hit single "One Sweet Day", which featured Boyz II Men, spent sixteen consecutive weeks at the top of Billboard's Hot 100 chart in 1996, setting the record for the most weeks atop the Hot 100 chart in history. After Carey's success in Asia with Merry Christmas, Billboard estimated Carey as the all-time best-selling international artist in Japan. In 2008, Billboard listed "We Belong Together" ninth on The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs and second on Top Billboard Hot 100 R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The song was also declared the most popular song of the 2000s decade by Billboard. In 2009, Carey's cover of Foreigner's song "I Want to Know What Love Is" became the longest-running number-one song in Brazilian singles chart history, spending 27 consecutive weeks at number-one. Additionally, Carey has had three songs debut at number-one on the Billboard Hot 100: "Fantasy", "One Sweet Day" and "Honey", making her the artist with the most number-one debuts in the chart's 52-year history. Also, she is the first female artist to debut at number 1 in the U.S. with "Fantasy". In 2010, Carey's 13th album and second Christmas album, Merry Christmas II You, debuted at No. 1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making it only the second Christmas album to top that chart. On November 19, 2010, Billboard magazine named Carey in their "Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years" chart at number four. In 2012, Carey was ranked second on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music." Billboard magazine ranks her at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, making Carey the second most successful female artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In August 2015, Carey was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2017, PETA gave her their "Angel for Animals Award," in honor of her work on the animated film "All I Want for Christmas Is You", in which a young girl adopts a homeless dog.

In October 2019, Carey was an honoree at Variety's Power of Women event alongside honorees Jennifer Aniston, Awkwafina, Brie Larson, Chaka Khan, and Dana Walden. The women were being celebrated for their careers as well as their philanthropic work ranging from involvement with The Fresh Air Fund to advocacy for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.On November 24, 2019, her song "All I Want for Christmas Is You" won three records in Guinness World Records for one of the best-selling and most recognizable Christmas songs, most streamed song on Spotify in 24 hours (female) (10,819,009 streams in December 2018) and most weeks in the UK singles Top 10 chart for a Christmas song (20) titles.

Discography

Mariah Carey (1990)

Emotions (1991)

Music Box (1993)

Merry Christmas (1994)

Daydream (1995)

Butterfly (1997)

Rainbow (1999)

Glitter (2001)

Charmbracelet (2002)

The Emancipation of Mimi (2005)

E=MC² (2008)

Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (2009)

Merry Christmas II You (2010)

Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse (2014)

Caution (2018)

Filmography

The Bachelor (1999)

Glitter (2001)

WiseGirls (2002)

Death of a Dynasty (2003)

State Property 2 (2005)

Tennessee (2008)

You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008)

Precious (2009)

The Butler (2013)

A Christmas Melody (2015)

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)

The Keys of Christmas (2016)

The Lego Batman Movie (2017)

Girls Trip (2017)

The Star (2017)

All I Want for Christmas Is You (2017)

Tours

Headlining tours

Music Box Tour (1993)

Daydream World Tour (1996)

Butterfly World Tour (1998)

Rainbow World Tour (2000)

Charmbracelet World Tour (2003–2004)

The Adventures of Mimi (2006)

Angels Advocate Tour (2009–2010)

Triumphant Australian Tour (2013)

The Elusive Chanteuse Show (2014)

The Sweet Sweet Fantasy Tour (2016)

Mariah Carey: Live in Concert (2018)

Caution World Tour (2019)

Co-headlining tours

All the Hits Tour (with Lionel Richie) (2017)

Residencies

Live at the Pearl (2009)

All I Want for Christmas Is You, a Night of Joy and Festivity (2014–2019)

#1 to Infinity (2015–2017)

The Butterfly Returns (2018–2020)

#03/27

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dweemeister · 4 years

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A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

In another time, during my mid-twenties, I would be considered old to have never married. Millennials, in their young adulthood, have stared down an economic crisis and now a pandemic that has encumbered societies in unprecedented ways. The median age for a first marriage has never been higher. Go back to the years after World War II in the United States and one will find a record amount of marriages (and divorces) among those in their early twenties. Marriages then and now test the forces of attraction as they ebb, survive disagreements, temptation, differences in character and values. Few other films capture that essence as well as Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s A Letter to Three Wives. Released by 20th Century Fox, A Letter to Three Wives is set in an idyllic, upper-crust suburban America – a reality most Americans are unfamiliar with. Yet, the tensions in this drama are deeply felt, and the anxieties of the three wives are shown with extraordinary compassion and understanding.

Somewhere in what looks like upstate New York (still close enough to drive to the Big Apple and back in a day), Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain), Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern), and Lora Mae Hollingsway (Linda Darnell) are volunteers who are about to take an annual riverboat ride for the underserved children in the community. Lunches have been prepared. The children are running up and down the decks, excited for a weekend of play. The ship’s engine sounds ready for cast off. In this town of enormous two-story homes, spacious front yards, old trees overlooking residential streets, and a quaint Main Street, even cosseted families help their neighbors in need. Before embarking, they receive a letter from their friend, Addie Ross (who is never fully seen; voiced by Celeste Holm), saying that she is leaving town with one of their husbands. She does not specify whose husband has she run off with: Bradford ��Brad” Bishop (Jeffrey Lynn), George Phipps (Kirk Douglas), or Porter Hollingsway (Paul Douglas; no relation to Kirk).

After reading the letter, Deborah, Rita, and Lora Mae decide not to speak about it for the rest of the trip, so as not to spoil the mood. During the trip and picnic, all three wives reminisce about their marriages as if they fully expect it is their respective husband – each of whom has, at one point in the past, admitted attraction to Addie Ross – who has been unfaithful. What could possibly have gone wrong, they wonder as they remember. This is shown in three lengthy flashbacks before the trip concludes and the women return home.

Already boasting breakthrough hits with Dragonwyck (1946) and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Mankiewicz would find himself among the elite of 20th Century Fox’s directorial lineup with A Letter to Three Wives. Joseph L. Mankiewicz served not only as director, but as screenwriter in this adaptation of A Letter to Five Wives by John Klempner – too many wives, said Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, as writer Vera Caspary adapted the story for four wives and Mankiewicz eliminated one more. Indeed, given how this film is organized, five wives are too many and four would be a stretch. Mankiewicz and Caspary’s treatment of the three stories manages to tie each wife’s/married couple’s story to the others, while retaining each marriage’s distinct dynamics.

First is Deborah. Played by Jeanne Crain, she is a U.S. Navy veteran, having served in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) and met her now-husband, Brad, while in the Navy. Her flashback takes us to the time when Brad introduced her to his friends’ circle and the country club’s social for the first time. Being out of uniform and donning a formal dress is an alien concept to her, and she is worried about making a fool of herself in front of Brad’s friends and everyone gathered there. There are hints in this first vignette of a class divide between Brad and Deborah, but this is never expounded upon for Deborah (Lorna Mae’s segment will lean into this). Nevertheless, the screenplay confronts Deborah’s fears about being the new girl, imposter syndrome, and her social anxiety. This could be treated as a punchline, as some 1930s and ‘40s films were more inclined to depict. But the writing and Jeanne Crain’s unsettled visage in her performance treat her feelings with legitimacy, acceptance, and good humor. Deborah’s flashback in A Letter to Three Wives sets the tone for the film: always rooted in humanistic drama, but not without some gentle comedy.

For Rita and George Phipps, their scenes together are more confrontational, with the other trying to assert as much control in their off-kilter lives as they can. She writes for radio dramas; he is a schoolteacher in language arts. She wants him to secure a higher-paying job (as if their comfortable house isn’t already enough, apparently); he feels like he has found his calling in teaching and think radio drama writing makes a mockery of great literature. Viewers more attuned to the politics of gendered pay differences might find George’s assertions to be backwards. The fact that it is even shown at all in A Letter to Three Wives upends the stereotypes of a male breadwinner – while not portraying the husband as a jobless ne’er-do-well – is remarkable, regardless of artistic medium. Yes, this is always framed as Rita’s story, but it takes her and George’s concerns as seriously as the other. Again, we see Mankiewicz and Caspary treating both side of a married couple with all respect to what fulfills them professionally and personally – occasionally in a relationship or friendship there is a clash of interests, but it is up to both to work through those differences. Though not his finest performance, Kirk Douglas – given the rough-edged persona cultivated in his filmography – is perfect casting. Ann Sothern’s passive-aggressive delivery of her dialogue is a joy, as we know she means not to offend. Those who adore Old Hollywood character actors will notice an uncredited, scene-stealing Thelma Ritter during Rita and George’s vignette – her last uncredited film appearance before greater (credited) performances for her future.

With Linda Darnell and Paul Douglas starring, Linda Mae’s flashback was the least satisfying for me, but also the most comedic. Linda Mae is from a working family – the finances difficult, the home ramshackle. Her story is set before meeting Porter, who just so happens to be her wealthy employer. The ethics of a wealthy executive being engaged with a younger employee (this soon-to-be married couple appears to have the largest age difference of the three, even though the age difference between Jeanne Crain and Jeffrey Lynn as Deborah and Brad is similar) are murky at best, and the dynamics of their relationship deserves to be viewed rather than described. Their marriage is not one of convenience, nor one based on values, but it overcomes the class differences – illustrated hilariously – that should make their story together impossible. It appears Linda Mae and Porter are on unstable ground, speaking to the unease in her socioeconomic status and his lingering pain over a failed marriage. Mankiewicz and Caspary’s screenplay, for the first time, appears a little unsure about what to do with Porter – whose free-wheeling personality sees Linda Mae make fewer demands than her friends. The resolution may surprise some in its brevity (and I imagine some will take issue to it), but it speaks to the messiness of individuals and how love contorts and forgives.

Linking all three vignettes together is the unseen Addie Ross. Portrayed in voiceover by Celeste Holm, Addie’s presence reverberates around the film half-seriously, as the three wives wonder which husband has been poached. But most importantly, what unites the film is the friendship between Deborah, Rita, and Lora Mae. Credit the performances of Crain, Sothern, and Darnell (one of the best performances in a tragically shortened career). Each of their characters has the others’ backing – evidenced early on, when Rita counsels Deborah before the latter’s first night out in town. Their promise to not speak of Addie’s provocative letter until their trip is over holds, reflecting a predisposition to suburban secrecy and upholding gendered mores that say women are too emotional and should restrain emotional outbursts. Not once are the wives’ bonds to each other fractured. Though the wives are collectively silent, the audience knows that they must be going through that punched-in-the-gut feeling that everyone experiences sometime in their life. That this is depicted with such grace speaks to the masterful writing and a fantastic ensemble performance.

Had A Letter to Three Wives remained as A Letter to Five Wives, the wives would have been played by Gene Tierney (1944’s Laura), Linda Darnell, Maureen O’Hara (1947’s Miracle on 34th Street), Dorothy McGuire (1947’s Gentleman’s Agreement), and Alice Faye (Fox’s primary musical superstar in the 1930s) – all set to shoot in November 1946. Talk about a “who is who” of 20th Century Fox-contracted actresses! This is not to downplay the credentials of Crain or Sothern, but the former was a young actress yet to realize the heights of her career and the latter was best-known for the Maisie series at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM, who loaned Sothern to Fox for this film). With Darryl F. Zanuck’s recommendation to revise the script to cut the film down to three wives, shooting did not begin until June 1948.

There is much that A Letter to Three Wives covers. From returning veterans to gender-coded expectations to class, this is a film attempting to make sense of a time when couples hurried to marry, with the United States’ economic boom extending into peacetime. Its flashback structure may seem a hackneyed thing almost seventy years later, but each additional segment layers poignancy to the past and present. So often overshadowed by Mankiewicz’s next film (some little thing called All About Eve), it has few rivals in Western cinema among films on marriage, in exultation and anguish. A Letter to Three Wives is Americana at its finest – not in blind celebration of these days long past of manicured lawns, dinner parties, and children playing until sundown; but in acknowledgment of human foibles that have and always will persist. It is the stuff that makes life interesting.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. A Letter to Three Wives is the one hundred and fifty-ninth feature-length or short film I have rated a ten on imdb.

#A Letter to Three Wives #Joseph L. Mankiewicz #Jeanne Crain #Linda Darnell #Ann Sothern #Kirk Douglas #Paul Douglas #Jeffrey Lynn #Celeste Holm #Vera Caspary #Sol C. Siegel #Arthur C. Miller #Darryl F. Zanuck #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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unfortunate-stranger-losers · 5 years

Text

The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations - How to Crack the Code

Now that Season Three of A Series of Unfortunate Events has aired, I feel it’s about time to finally tell y’all the Code from The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations- for those of you who can’t get the book, haven’t read it yet, can’t figure out the code, or who just don’t wanna spend time finding it out yourselves.

On page 188 of The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations, the key to cracking a code sprinkled throughout the book is provided:

WARNING → THERE IS A SECRET MESSAGE IN THIS BOOK

You may have noticed a cross-referencing technique that appears throughout these pages, looking as such: (See: Notorious Researchers, pg. 30). This device is a helpful way to direct readers to relevant information that can be found elsewhere in a text.

It is also a handy way to send a secret message.

Every librarian knows that books contain secrets, and hiding a secret message in the pages of a book is a frequent VFD tactic. Volunteers who cleverly cross-reference will discover the message, while their enemies, who rarely finish a book, remain unaware.

If you have read this far, you may be wondering how to discover this message yourself. First read the book carefully, making note of any parentheticals shaded an unusual hue. This is no printer error; it is a key informing you that part of the message can be found on the suggested page. Follow the references and locate the letters colored a corresponding hue. These letters are scrambled, not unlike an anagram. Once you have unscrambled the word, write it on the color-coded line of this telegram. Completing the telegram will reveal the answer to a question that has stumped philosophers, police inspectors, and even Lemony Snicket:

What comes after the end of The End?

Next to this description is a photo of a telegram, which is fourteen words long:

___ ____ __ _______

____ ___ __ _____

____ ____ _____

__ _____ _____

And, indeed, each word is underlined in a different color.

Now... onto cracking the code.

As referenced, there are occasional cross-references in the text. And sometimes, the See: is in the color you need to look for.

If you follow each See to its corresponding page, you’ll find letters scattered across the text that are in the color you need to find. These letters make up each word.

Word-by-word, let’s see what we can find:

The first word, in dark purple, is on page 133: The Reptile Room. To be honest, this is the hardest word to find: the dark color is very close to the color of the actual text. There are three letters here, in the following sentences:

You always want to do something new, but at the same time, I wanted to see if there were clues I could integrate into the design.

This flips it so the priority is the reptiles, and his own living space is sort of diminutive.

And in “The Reptile Room,” [Monty]’s delighted to share his world with these kids.

otw

The second word is on page 99: Toupees for Toddles, in an orange-ish color. There are four letters, which can be found in the following sentences:

“Well, we can’t put a wig on a baby.”

It’s one of the oddest things I’ve ever done in my career, applying a little wig on a baby.

When we started the second season, Presley had grown her hair long enough that we could actually create the ponytail with here own hair, which was a relief.

ests

The third word, in a hot pink, is on page 130: Mr Poe’s Office. There are only two letters, which can be found in the following sentences:

It can be goofy, but it’s never goofy-stupid.

He’s the guy that’s literally standing between Olaf and the Baudelaire fortune.

The fourth word, on page 110: How to Dress for a Masked Ball, in a gray-blue color, can be found in the following sentences, with seven letters:

The flashback that opens “The Carnivorous Carnival” is set at a Venetian-style masked ball, where masks conceal a number of familiar faces. Cynthia Summers designed each mask with the character in mind, including Dr Orwell’s “eyeglasses,” a Medusa-inspired snake mask for Uncle Monty, and theatrical comedy/tragedy masks for the Snicket Brothers. (Jacques wears the comedy mask, while Lemony, of course, is tragedy.) The ball also marks the first on-screen appearance of the mysterious Beatrice, described in the script as “a beautiful woman dressed as a dragonfly.”

eidnrsf

The fifth word, four letters long, is on page 45: Olivia Caliban/Madame Lulu, is in gray:

A dangling thread from Season One was a certain book on secret organizations discovered by Justice Strauss - a book whose title will be familiar to anyone reading this.

Still, they liked the idea of a character finding The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations and having the book change your life, as it will no doubt change yours.

While the book’s version of Olivia is a veteran agent of dubious morality, the show reinvents her as a noble school librarian struggling against institutional corruption.

There, disguised as Madame Lulu, she fulfills her mission of passing the book to the Baudelaires - and sacrifices herself at the lion pit to save their lives.

jtsu

The sixth word, colored light orange, is on page 109: How to Dress for a Career in Food Service. The three letters can be found here:

Author Daniel Handler explains that the VFD agents we meed in the show are the types of people whom children notice by adults overlook.

You’re going to notice things that are invisible to the adults talking over your head.

Take a good look at the restaurant’s terrifying logo.

uto

On page 141: The Miserable Mill is the seventh word, in two red letters:

“The Wide Window” left us with no more stage space, so it forced us to shoot the mill at a real location, an old dock building which we then tried to make look like a stage.

Klaus comes back from the eye doctor, but he isn’t quite himself.

The eighth word is on page 97: The Real Sugar Bowl. There are five light purple letters:

According to Esme, it was stolen from her by Beatrice, and according to Olivia, it may have been the reason for the VFD schism. It’s not the first sugar bowl to play a vital role in a work of classic literature (interested parties may seek out We Have Always Lived in The Castle at their local library), but Daniel Handler muses on another possible inspiration: “There a whole sugar scene in the movie Midnight (See: Snicket, Jacques, pg 44) that must have seeped into me when I was a child. Somehow I think that was one of the sugar bowls of literature that ended up sneaking in.”

The existence of four identical sugar bowl [props] may be of interest to Esme Squalor, or at least her actress, Lucy Punch, who requested to keep one when the series wrapped. “My character was so desperate for it,” says Punch. “It seemed appropriate.”

eahrc

The ninth word, in blue, is on page 172: The Carnivorous Carnival. There are four letters:

There’s literally no program you can watch that’s any wierce.

The aesthetic of carnivals and circuses is naturally creepy and absurd to begin with. And then you add the overlay of our material, where everything is filtered through the Baudelaires, so the sets are designed to be seen as if you’re a vulnerable child glimpsing this horrible world and trying to maintain hope.

Count Olaf arrives at Caligari Carnival, where he hopes the fortune-teller can help him.

wlli

The tenth word is on page 89: The Many Faces of Barry Sonnenfeld. There are four green letters:

and in “The Vile Village,” he’s the fire chief posing with his Dalmatian int he firehouse-turned-saloon.

A common ancestor to our series’ interconnected families?

Barry birthday is April Fool’s Day, and for his birthday, I decided to knock off a painting with him in it.

We’re shooting the Hotel Denouement right now, and the whole hotel isi based on the Dewey Decimal System, and each floor is a different subject.

eetm

On page 64-65: The Sinister Songs, you can find five magenta letters for the eleventh word:

“I was a huge fan of the books in my twenties, and I was also a huge fan of Barry Sonnenfeld, so to see those two come together and actually be a part of it was unreal.”

Count Olaf introduces himself to the Baudelaires with this song and dance - ignoring the fact he’s already met them. Handlers says, “Singing is perfect for Count Olaf because he imagines himself so wonderful.”

All of the dance numbers were choreographed by Paul Becker, who pulled double duty in the first half of “The Carnivorous Carnival”.

She’s had quite an exciting / Time on the road

agina

On page 24: Violet the Inventor, there are two gray letters for the twelfth word:

But now those inventions, like the Baudelaire mansion itself, are gone.

She promised her parents she would always look after them, and while Count Olaf’s schemes have put that promise to the test, Violet’s managed to stand strong in even the most unfortunate situation.

Pages 116-117: Deciphering Code: Using the Dials of the Spyglass, has five purple letters for the thirteenth word:

As a volunteer, you already know why and when the spyglass was created (See: Motion Picture, Pg 10) but we will briefly recap its history here.

A permanent mark has its advantages, since even the most absent-minded member rarely leave the house without their ankle (See: Peg Leg, pg 86), but it has its drawbacks too, particularly if the organization undergoes a schism, so that the same symbol that once stood for comradery and literacy suddenly represents treachery and pyromania now that it is inscribed on the ankles of your enemies.

But just as a movie might be more than a movie, a spyglass can be more than a spyglass.

Critics called these films terrible, which was the point: Sebald wanted to ensure that no one would want to see them besides other volunteers, who would be more interested in their secret messages than their artistic value.

The cinema’s projectionist assigns the film a production code made up of a unique combination of numbers and symbols.

riynb

The fourteenth and final word can be found on page 32: Who is Lemony Snicket? There are five pale green letters:

He is currently investigating the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, though his reason for doing so is unknown, as are his whereabouts.

Mr. Snicket can be identified by his dry wit, his tailored suits, and his ankle tattoo, as well as his tendency to launch into wordy monologues containing Very Frequent Definitions.

But when developing the series for Netflix, Barry Sonnenfeld and Daniel Handler independently felt that their Snicket should be seen as well as heard.

And they both independently thought of Patrick Warburton, a frequent Sonnenfeld collaborator whom Handler had loved in a little-seen film called The Woman Chaser. Volunteers who track it down will note that it features Warburton speaking to the camera in a suit and a deadpan style that one might call Serlinig-esque - or Snicket-esque.

haebc

The Code

So now we have all the words:

otw ests of eidnrsf

jtsu uto fo eahrc

wlli eemt agina

on riynb haebc

Which do not take a long time to unscramble...

What comes after the end of The End?

Well, it turns out... the code is a couplet...

Two sets of friends, just out of reach

Will meet again on Briny Beach.

#asoue #asoue netflix #a series of unfortunate events #the incomplete history of secret organizations #lemony snicket #mine

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davidfarland · 5 years

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Emotional and Intellectual Payoff

Some stories gain power by tapping into the emotions that we felt at a particular age, or during a certain time of our lives. For example, some novels use nostalgia as a powerful draw. I can think of a few extremely popular fantasy novels that hearken back to Tolkien’s work. Years ago, one major reviewer said of Robert Jordan something to the effect that, “Robert Jordan has come to dominate the landscape that Tolkien created.” In short, of the Tolkienesque writers, Jordan had done the best job of recreating the feelings that Tolkien evoked.

Similarly, if you’re writing certain types of romance, you might hearken back to Jane Austin; or if you’re writing about the 1970s, you might try to capture that period in history so perfectly that it takes your readers back in time. In the same way, it seems that every major city in the U.S. has an author of police thrillers who specializes in writing about that city.

So nostalgia is a tremendously powerful draw in a lot of types of literature, even wonder literature, though it seems to me that the more original your work is, the more difficult it becomes to use nostalgia as a draw.

Another huge draw is mystery. If you analyze bestselling novels—from young adult literature, to thrillers to fantasy and so on—you’ll find that nearly all of them open with some mysterious element. I believe that it was the author John Brown who pointed out to me a study that showed the power of mystery. The brains of dogs who were sent out on the hunt, it was discovered, were rewarded with an intermittent supply of dopamine to keep them interested in the hunt. As soon as the object the dogs were searching for was discovered, the dopamine stopped and was replaced by a rush of serotonin.

It appears that humans are much the same. A good mystery, with plenty of clues, can hold readers for hundreds of pages.

Then of course comes wonder, that sense of discovery that comes when we find something new. In some genres, such as science fiction and fantasy, and in most YA fiction, it is the controlling emotion of the literature, the emotion that the author seeks most to evoke.

But of course, as I’ve pointed out before, we don’t really even have “genres” in fiction. Books are sold based upon the emotion that they’re supposed to evoke. Thus, romance books evoke romance, thrillers arouse feelings associated with adventure, mysteries give us our dopamine rush, and of course we have horror. If you look at science fiction and fantasy, you’ll understand why they were called “wonder” literatures as early as the 1960s.

Last of all we have “general fiction,” a category where numerous types of literatures can be found. Humor is kept in this section of the bookstore, but so are books that carry a sense of nostalgia about life as a whole. Some books in this section cater to a reader’s sense of elitism, and so on.

The most important thing to recognize about a story is this: What emotions is this story attempting to arouse, and are those emotions appropriate to the audience?

Young readers respond to wonder, humor, horror, and mystery. Writing dramatic novels for children will probably destroy your career. Similarly, if you’re an elderly person writing a nostalgic novel about your life during the Great Depression and hoping that it will appeal to children, you’re going to be disappointed. Children don’t share your nostalgia. They don’t really read for that. Now if you have valuable insights you gained in your childhood, those might serve as a draw, but I’ve read literally dozens of novels written by elderly people who just don’t understand their audience.

So you need to know what it is that your reader wants in his or her story, and then supply it in abundance. If you’re writing a romance, your reader will want it to be the most powerful one of its kind. That should be your goal. If you’re writing humor, then your novel needs to be so funny it makes your reader weep.

In critiquing a story, I look at how well the author caters to the needs of his or her readers. What emotions did I feel when I was reading the story? How powerfully? How frequently?

Now, you might note that I lump intellectual payoff with emotional payoff. Plato himself listed intellectual payoff as one of the primary values to a tale. Most of us, when we have a cool insight, get that feeling that our “head is about to explode.” It’s something like a feeling of wonder, but it’s aroused by a cool plot turn, or a startling revelation, or a unique plot element. Sometimes, a character’s insight in a story will arouse that feeling. Have you ever watched a movie and heard a character say something that seemed profound or offered an insight that was just what you needed to hear at that time in your life? A great story, in my estimation (and Plato’s), doesn’t just entertain, it enlightens. It doesn’t just amuse the reader, it offers insights into the human condition.

So when I critique a tale, I often ask myself at the end, “Am I a wiser and better person for having read this tale?” If so, the tale will stand tall in my memory.

#writing tips #writing tip #writer #writeblr #writing a book #creative writing #author #editor

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bbclesmis · 5 years

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David Oyelowo on 'Les Miserables,' Making Directorial Debut With Oprah Winfrey

The Emmy- and Globe-nominated actor, who directs 'The Water Man' with Winfrey as co-producer, also discusses taking on the most iconic and tragic antagonist in literature and not wanting to be "the token person of color" on the PBS series.

David Oyelowo has always been a fan of the Les Misérables musical, but it wasn't until he picked up Andrew Davies' script that the star — who's been Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated for his work on HBO's Nightingale and in Ava DuVernay's Selma — fully appreciated the villainous Inspector Javert. "There was so much more depth and complexity to this character than I ever realized from any iteration I had seen," he says. Oyelowo, 43, spoke with THR about executive producing and starring on PBS' six-part Les Mis miniseries (which debuted April 14) and developing his directorial debut, The Water Man, a fantasy drama co-produced by Oprah Winfrey — "or Mum O, as I like to call her."

Javert is one of the most iconic and tragic antagonists in literature and theater. How did you key into his psychology?

One couldn't earn the way Javert comes to an end in such a dramatic, violent and self-inflicted way without a very clear runway and emotional, psychological and spiritual journey. The biggest clue to me was that he was born in prison to criminal parents, yet he is now a man who detests criminality to an obsessive degree. You go, "Well, it's fine to hate criminality, but to be so obsessed with Jean Valjean — what's going on there?" Victor Hugo actually based Jean Valjean and Javert on the same person, this gentleman he knew who had both sides within himself. To that extent, Javert transposed all the criminality he loathed in his own upbringing onto Valjean, and that justifies his obsessive pursuit of him. But when he recognizes that this man isn't just criminal, he is worthy of redemption, he is someone who somehow has been able to transcend his criminality; he realizes that this pursuit has been futile. The criminality that he loathes is still within himself, which is why he chooses to destroy himself.

Did you and Dominic West know each other before this?

We didn't know each other well. He's such a lovely guy and incredibly funny. I had to do as much as I could to stay away from him while we were shooting. For me, I need to inhabit and feel every tendril of the character, and I couldn't entertain the idea of being jokey-jokey with him and then go into the level of acrimony between us. There's such a cat-and-mouse element to Javert and Valjean's relationship that was so satisfying to play. As an actor, a lot of the time you are trying to find the subtext to a scene, to imbue it with interest. With this, it was absolutely inherent. These characters had so much history that was always present in every scene they had together. But we've become great friends ever since.

Was using the music from the stage adaptation ever a consideration?

It never was, no. We all discussed that if we're going to do this, there has to be a real reason why this should exist so soon after Tom Hooper's [2012] filmic musical. We wanted to make it a much dirtier, grittier, immediate, politically prescient version. Being a producer, I didn't want to be the token person of color within it. I was very clear that we need to have that be something organic and truthful to the time. We've done a terrible job of representing just how many people of color were inhabiting Europe at that time. And not just in subjugated roles. Anyone who's read Tom Reiss' The Black Count will know that Thomas Alexandre Dumas was a general in the French army in the late 1700s [one of the highest-ranking men of African descent ever in a European army]. So, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Javert was indeed someone like me. You want people to see themselves onscreen.

I've read that you've specifically asked your reps to seek out roles where you might not be first in mind. For this miniseries, did your casting come first or did you initially come on as an executive producer? Did you feel like you had to fight for the role at all?

I signed on as an actor first. They approached me and I was actually the first person to be cast in it. But yes, what you mentioned is absolutely true. Early on in my career I felt the need to say to my representatives, “Put me out for roles that are not race specific.” Because the truth of the matter was, the more interesting roles were inherently going to white actors. I am just so elated to now be going into a phase of my career where I am being approached with those kind of roles. It's not something necessarily I'm going to seek out. So yeah, Les Mis is something I was approached with, and that is incredibly gratifying because a decade ago, 15 years ago, I just don't know if that would have been the case.

As an EP on the series, was there a time where you felt like you had to take off your actor hat and fix a problem? Or did you feel like it was generally smooth sailing throughout the shoot?

It was pretty much smooth sailing. Tom Shankland, our director, had such a handle on the piece. You couldn't ask him a single question that he didn't have an answer for both on the basis of the script and the book itself. I was so impressed by him. Our producer Chris Carey also was just a monster when it came to making everything work in a beautiful way. For me, my primary function was just keeping on it when it came to representation within the piece. I think that is when sometimes things slip within the cracks. We all go to the movies and watch TV in the hope of seeing ourselves represented. We all have bias, we all lean into things that are more akin to our own experience. And of course, I have a bias toward seeing people of color in something like this. So it was very helpful, I think, to have me around to say, "Guys, let's remember the nature of the piece we're doing. We need more extras of color here. Let's not forget what we're trying to do here." Some of the development of the script I was very much a part of, and then a lot of the distribution and the marketing and the release dates and all that kind of stuff. Postproduction is a big side of getting a six-hour piece to be its best self. I got my hands quite dirty with that process as well.

This spring, your slate is pretty packed in addition to Les Mis. You had Relive debut at Sundance, you're in production on Peter Rabbit 2, and you have Come Away and Chaos Walking in post. How are you doing?

It's a very, very good question. I literally was in Sydney doing Peter Rabbit. We then went to London last week, and I'm now here in New York. Then, I leave here to go into preproduction on my directorial debut, The Water Man, in about three days. I have an incredible wife who makes it all work. We actually run our production company together. We have four children and they are with me a lot of the time. We scheduled the shoot for The Water Man over the summer holidays so that they can be with me. I really, really love what I get to do, and I don't take it for granted at all. I'm just trying to have as much fun and tell as many great stories as I can, while I can. But my wife and I have a two-week rule. We're never apart for more than two weeks, and so that means a lot of flying, and a lot of crazy scheduling.

You must have a lot of frequent flyer miles.

I have an enormous amount. So if you ever have any trips that you're planning, please hit me up because I have plenty.

Why did you select The Water Man for your directorial debut?

I was looking for a film that was akin to the ones I loved growing up — E.T. or Close Encounters of the Third Kind or films like The NeverEnding Story, Labyrinth, The Goonies. They don't have to be $200 million extravaganzas, but they can have a fantasy element and be grounded in realism and truth with poignant themes. This script by Emma Needell was on the Black List. I fought hard and thankfully got it, and myself and Oprah Winfrey — or "Mum O," as I like to call her — came on as producers to develop it. Another director was going to direct it, but he fell out. My fellow producers turned to me and said, "Well, you've been working on this passionately for five years. Do you want to do it?" I took two weeks to really mull that over.

What was the deciding factor in those two weeks that made you say, "Yes, I will; I’m ready"?

Realizing that I was passionate enough about the story to dedicate as much time to making a film as is necessary. And the fact that the story is just so moving to me. It's about an 11-year-old boy who's on the hunt for a mythical figure who he believes can save his mother from an illness. I also love the fact that it is an adventure movie. Basically, this boy teams up with this girl and they go into a forest hunting for this mythical figure called “the Water Man.” So it has elements of Stand by Me and Pan's Labyrinth, both films I deeply love. I'm always looking for opportunities to scare myself, and this is the most dramatic example of that I have had in my career thus far. So I jumped in.

Was there ever a seed earlier on where directing first sprouted in your mind?

Very early on. It's something I've always wanted to do. I remember seeing Kenneth Branagh's Henry V and that being one of the earliest moments. I thought, “Whoa. That guy directed that and is in it. How on Earth is that possible?" And then he did it again with Hamlet. I think the seed just kept on being replanted of the idea of doing it one day. So when the opportunity presented itself, it had been long gestating.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/david-oyelowo-les-miserables-making-directorial-debut-oprah-1213657

#les mis bbc #bbc les mis #david oyelowo #javert #Interviews #articles #the hollywood reporter #pbs

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carumens · 6 years

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expand your literature friday nº1

Author: Ana María Matute

Notable works: Pequeño Teatro (1954), Luciérnagas, eng. Fireflies (1955), Los Hijos Muertos, eng. The Dead Sons (1958), Olvidado Rey Gudú, eng. Forgotten King Gudú (1996).

Obviously, whole theses and analysis could be written about this amazing writer and her work. There will be loads of thing about Los Abel that I would love you guys to know, but that I can’t just include in a Tumblr post. Hopefully, this will be interesting enough to you!

*WARNING. The book I’m going to be talking about has never been translated, so all the quotes and excerpts below have been translated by me.

So, without further ado, proceed and enjoy!

Brief Introduction

Ana María Matute (1925 - 2014) was a Spanish writer and member of the Real Academia Española, which, summing it up, is the insttution that regulates the Spanish language in Spain. It’s a great honor to be a member of the RAE, and she was the third woman in the history of this institution to be conceded a seat in it. She is considered one of the most personal and raw voices of the 20th century in Spanish literature, and one of the best posguerra (which is the period following the Spanish Civil War) novelists. She wrote novels, short stories, children tales and essays. She was considered in 1976 for the Nobel Literature Prize and won numerous literature prices, among which was the Premio Cervantes, the most prestigious literature prize in the Spanish language.

Matute was a professor at university, and she traveled to many cities to give lectures, especially to the US. In her speeches, she talks about emotional changes, the constant changes of the human being and how innocence is never cmpletely lost. She said that although her body was old, her heart was still young.

Here is a small article by The New York Times, published some days after her death in 2014, that contains some more info about her biography and career.

Style

Matute deals with many political, social and moral aspects of Spain during the post-war period. Her prose is lyrical and practical, and she incorporates techniques associated with modernism and surrealism. However, Matute is considered a realist writer. Many of her books deal with the period of life ranging from childhood to adolescence to adulthood.

Matute uses, as a primary resource, pessimism, which, in her novels, often manifests in the form of alienation, hypocrisy, demoralization and malice. About her work, it is said that although the arguments of each of her novels are independent, they are all united by the general theme of Civil War and the portrait of a society dominated by materialism and self-interest.

Also, during the 1940s in Spain, a new literary aesthetic, which came to be known with the name of tremendismo, was born. The main aesthetic features of tremendismo revolve around the experiences of authors during the Civil War, and the misery and insecurity that were characteristic of post-war Spain. Tremendismo is heavily based on pessimistic, determinist and fatalist philosophies; it shows the darkest aspects of life, such as failure and death, and relates them to existentialism. Protagonists of novels belonging to tremendismo are usually marginal beings from the lowest layers of society, with primitive minds and without spiritual values or sensitivity. They often commit errors that lead them to tragic consequences, but they can’t be blamed because it is society that leads them to act that certain way. In this way, the worst part of human beings, highlited by an unfair society, is shown.

Los Abel

“I have arrived and nobody waits for me, because I have not warned anyone and I do not know anyone. It is difficult to define contours. The town, sunk in the bottom of the valley, is a ghost of violet lividness: like an unfortunate overcrowding of half-ruined hovels.”

Los Abel (1948) was Ana María Matute's first published novel and is, to this day, basically unknown. “Why are you going to talk about a novel that is not even considered her most relevant work?” you may ask. Well, simply because I love it, and it was a major inspiration for both my first poemary and my current WIP, Sunflowers at Night. The publication of this work was considered a literary revelation, a fact that would be confirmed in the successive works presented by its author.

Ana María Matute wrote Los Abel, a work that obtained a brilliant classification in the 1945 Premio Nadal, at the young age of 21. Inspired by the biblical story of Adam and Eve, a reflection of the enviroment after civil strife, it’s the dark story of a family living sad and tormented lives, very few of which escape the climate of anguish and exhaustion. Matute manages to create a tense, passionate and even feral atmosphere.

Plot *(WARNING. Spoilers ahead.)

The story is told in the first person by two different characters. The narrator in chapters I-IV is a young man who returns to a town he visited with his mother when he was a child. In these chapters he remembers his first encounter with the Abel family and then describes the town and the people who live there during his visit. The man rents the old house of the aforementioned family and there he finds the diary of Valba Abel, one of the sisters who lived there. So, the second narrator is Valba, or more precisely, chapters V-XXIX represent her personal diary in which she tells the sad story of her family.

This story takes place in a post-war rural landscape, where the family, formed by the father and his seven children: Oswaldo, Augusto, Tito, Valbanera, Juan Nepomuceno, Octavio and Ovidia — who prefer to be called by the nicknames Aldo, Gus, Tito, Valba, Juan, Tavi and the youngest simply, the Small One — all with very different personalities. Their mother has died and the father tries to maintain the unity of the family, using their land and house for that. However, life in a poor monotonous rural area is not enough for young people who show different abilities and have their own interests. Only the older brother, Aldo, is interested in cultivating the land and continuing with the traditional life of their parents: the other siblings want to escape from the village and live in the city.

After some gray and depressive winters, the children leave, one after the other, the orchard of their father, and move to the city. There they try to start new and different lifes, but their destiny takes them back to the village, where two of the brothers, Aldo and Tito, different as day and night, have such serious problems with each other that the first kills the second.

The protagonist

Valba is the representation of the rare girl, a very common protagonist in female post-war novels, who has a lonely character, looks unfeminine to other women and who is looking for her own identity. But in addition to the features that are typical to the rare girl trope, Matute adds to Valba a kind of darkness and depth. The town doctor describes her with the following words: "What deep eyes: a whole world enclosed within. To tell you the truth, I have never seen a look like that. Only sometimes do beggars in ditches have that look, or the hungry. And she looked like a child, with her indecisive hands. She had wolf teeth, hurtful as little daggers.”

After the death of her mother, Valba has to leave her studies in the city and return home, where she has difficulty finding her place among her brothers. She often feels redundant, without a way out and guilty that she lets her life go by without really living it, repeating phrases like: "I felt ridiculous, useless, small" and "I'm tired of not living." Even though she doesn’t like her sitaution, she doesn’t really try to make it better, thus acquiring a typical property of the protagonists in tremendismo.

The few moments of joy in Valba's diary are related to love or with the hope that she would find love. The romantic story with Galo, an artist in the city, offers hope for a happy ending but becomes a failure that destroys Valba's soul and eliminates her optimism for a better future- She feels indifference towards life: "How many hours still extending before me! It is possible that I will still live for many years; what a great tedium youth is, how a great tedium, a whole life still to be traveled, to drag behind me! " Valba also loses the ability to see love as something pure and beautiful: "I was like the top of a mountain. If I ever loved again, my feeling would drag a chorus of ridicule and parodies."

The violent and extreme situations are typical of tremendismo. In the case of Los Abel it’s not so much about violence as it is about death and intense moments forming a continuous chain during the story. Valba's narrative begins with the death of her mother who leaves her husband and seven children behind, some of them very young, who have to grow up under the harsh guidance of their father. To this event follows the death of the village’s teacher and although no one really cries for him, it is an adversity for the people. Later, Juan gets sick and ends up crippled. Then, when the littlest sister is preparing for her First Communion, the church is burned. A flood follows the fire: the river rises on its banks and threatens to take the house of the Abel with him. But the house, the strongest link in the family, continues in its place, at the foot of the mountains. In these mountains, Valba's father loses his life later on, and this event marks the beginning of the last chapter of the Abel family. Afterwards, there is no unifying force and the brothers who have remained in the village leave their home one after the other.

Matute completes the book with a violent ending. As we mentioned, Aldo, the eldest brother kills Tito, the luckiest brother of the seven. This crime is caused by years of envy and anger that have been growing inside Aldo. When he gets home and sees that Tito, whom his wife loves, is doing successful restructuring in the land of their parents, he can’t tolerate the injustice and shoots him. With this event, Matute uses for the first time the symbol of the Cainism, the known crime of the Bible, very frequent in her later works.

And so, the novel ends with this sublime piece of writing I felt the necessity to share with you guys:

“The two thunderous shots resounded, much more than the whole storm of our flood. The walls trembled and a thousand cries creaked on the stairs. The two bullets sank into that golden flesh, into that chest that always breathed rhythmically. But what revenge was that? What revenge ...? My God, Tito was youth! And I fell to my knees, and with that blood of his that was already sliding between the joints of the mosaics, I wet my face, as if it were a caress.

This is what I read."

And...

I really hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you guys have any questions, please ask me!!!

Leave me your comments and opinions too!

tagging: @katabasiss @hepiit @medusaswrites @quartzses @the-idiot-who-lose-you @writeblrs @esoteric-eclectic-eccentric @leopardsnake-stories

#literaturedaily #dailylit #dailynovels #spanish literature #ana maria matute #expand your literature fridays #eylf #i hope u guys find this interesting #i know its long sorry #i summed it up as much as i could #lqfihioewahvlfki.#hit me up when you read it please!!!!

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chiseler · 5 years

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William Attaway’s Hobo Novel

“Day O! Day O! Daylight come and me wanna go home.” Most Americans would immediately recognize Harry Belafonte’s “Banana Boat Song,” with its rhyming, rhythmic language and the irresistible calypso beat. “Come Mr. Tally man tally me banana…” Yet the creative genius behind the popular Jamaican singer is little known beyond a small academic circle. A close friend of Belafonte, African American writer William Attaway wrote the lyrics to this classic and others, compiled in his Calypso Song Book of 1957. “Day O is based on the traditional work songs of the gangs who load the banana boats in the harbor at Trinidad,” Attaway explains in the liner notes of Belafonte’s 1956 album Calypso. “The men come to work with the evening star and continue through the night. They long for daybreak when they will be able to return to their homes. All their wishful thinking is expressed in the lead singer’s plaintive cry: ‘Day O, Day O…. The lonely men and the cry in the night spill overtones of symbolism which are universal.” Attaway spent a long and varied career giving voice, in a range of literary and popular genres, to “the lonely men” whose labor puts food on our tables and keeps our industries running. He is best known for his 1941 novel Blood on the Forge, which chronicles the African American Great Migration and labor strife in the Pennsylvania steel mills. But perhaps Attaway’s most powerful expression of the loneliness of the agricultural worker is his first novella—out of print and neglected by scholars—a hobo narrative called Let Me Breathe Thunder.

Attaway’s interest in the poor and outcast began not with his own experience of poverty, but with his youthful rejection of bourgeois values that prompted him to follow an unconventional path. Attaway was born in Greenville, Mississippi in 1911, and migrated as a child to Chicago. His father, a physician, and his mother, a teacher, desired better opportunities for their children outside of the Jim Crow South, and encouraged their son to pursue a career in medicine. While his older sister, Ruth, met their parents’ expectations by studying hard and becoming a successful Broadway actress, William bristled under the constraints of his middle-class upbringing. He frequently skipped classes during high school, and fared little better at the University of Illinois—except for his course in creative writing.

The genesis of Attaway’s hobo novella lies in his adventures on the road and rails during the Great Depression. After two years of college, Attaway dropped out and hopped a freight headed west with forty dollars in his pocket. This was the early 1930s, when desperate men, women, and children swelled the ranks of the itinerant labor force. Once he reached San Francisco, he realized he was too broke to follow his dream of traveling to the Far East, so he got a job as a stevedore. Lured once again by the romance of the road, he followed the crops up through the western states, stopping for a few months at a farm in Kansas and again with a Japanese family back in San Francisco. “I had a hard job making it,” Attaway reminisced to the Daily Worker in June 1939, “Going over the mountains in an empty [refrigerator car] I lost all sensation in my fingers for almost two years.” Riding the rails as an itinerant laborer radicalized Attaway, and he worked as a union organizer upon joining his sister Ruth in Harlem in 1933. After struggling to find a job in the depth of the Depression, Attaway hit the road again, this time as an actor in Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s play “You Can’t Take It With You.”

These experiences—as hobo, activist, and actor—provided rich material for Attaway’s literary imagination. He wrote Let Me Breathe Thunder while on tour with the play, and its theatrical qualities reflect the context of its creation. The story draws from Attaway’s hobo experience, yet its main characters, Step and Ed, are white. These hard-boiled hoboes ride the rails in search of a good time and an occasional job. On a lark, they take a runaway Mexican child named Hi Boy under their wings. While Attaway flirts with the devil-may-care freedom of the hobo life, he makes it clear that the road is not a fit environment for a child, and he exposes Step and Ed’s desperate loneliness beneath their raucous revelry. The threesome settles into a more domestic routine when they stop to work for a few months at an apple farm in Washington’s Yakima Valley, owned by a kindly, father figure named Sampson. When they tire of this wholesome, familial environment, Step and Ed visit a nearby roadhouse owned by the most fascinating characters in the novella, a black female entrepreneur, Mag, and her partner, Cooper. Ultimately, the womanizing, hedonist Step loses his chance at redemption when he brings Sampson’s teen-aged daughter to the roadhouse and seduces her, and they flee to the rails once more.

Published in 1939, Let Me Breathe Thunder received positive reviews in both the mainstream and radical press. As Milton Meltzer proclaimed in the Daily Worker: “When William Attaway’s first novel landed on the desks of the critics the other day they got excited. From left to right the reviews are alive with paragraphs punched out enthusiastically.” Attaway’s novel may have appealed to critics in and out of the literary Left because it embedded radical themes—anti-Capitalism, anti-lynching, and even interracial sex—within the framework of a more conventional masculine road narrative. As Stanley Young of the New York Times put it: “His tough and tender story of two young box-car wanderers and their love for a little Mexican waif who rides the reefers with them has some of the emotional quality and force of the familiar relationship of George and Lennie in ‘Of Mice and Men.’ We see two rootless men faced by hard reality yet still susceptible to dreams and affection.” Despite these favorable reviews, the novella did not sell well, and it has received little attention from scholars. This critical neglect is perhaps due to the nature of present-day critical categories, which implicitly define African American literature as literature by and about black people. What does one do with a book written by a black writer with white protagonists? A book that resembles Of Mice and Men more so than Native Son?

Stanley Young wasn’t the only critic to mention the resemblance between Attaway’s debut novella and Steinbeck’s best-seller. Other critics at the time noticed the parallel, as have a handful of scholars who make passing reference to Attaway’s first book in their surveys of African American literature. Yet no one has compared the two in depth, which is crucial to understanding Attaway’s take on the intersections of race and class, and his effort to bridge radical anti-racism and American populism. Attaway self-consciously revises Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men to complicate the image of the populist collective—in this case the hobo community—that was so appealing in the 1930s. Attaway suggests the radically egalitarian potential of the hobo subculture, yet also exposes its racist shadow side.

In both novellas, the outsider status of the white characters allows them to cross racial boundaries. In Of Mice and Men, Lennie and George expand their vision of the “dream farm” to include Candy, the aging and crippled “swamper,” and Crooks, the “Negro stable buck” with a disfigured back. Yet Crooks does not enter into the community as an equal, but rather offers to “work for nothing—just [my] keep.” Moreover, Steinbeck avoids the thorny issue of miscegenation by limiting his interracial community to men. When Curley’s wife enters the scene, she silences the newfound friends by threatening to accuse Crooks of rape. Her threat of lynching disempowers and marginalizes the interracial collective.

Attaway offers a more radical interracial vision by directly confronting the hot-button issue of miscegenation. Like Steinbeck, he depicts the hobo subculture as radically egalitarian due to the outsider status of poor, rootless whites. According to the black hobo that appears briefly in Attaway’s story, “Guys on the road ain’t got prejudice like other folks.” Yet this hobo is a far cry from the physically weak, guarded Crooks. Rather, he asserts his racial equality in sexual terms, bragging about his sexual encounter with a white woman: “‘there was a yeller-haired girl in the empty with a bunch of us. Some of them gave her money. She let me love her up all the way in to Chi for a piece of cake. […] Black or white, it’s all the same on the road.’” In the boxcar, the black hobo can break America’s most powerful racial taboo, its number one justification for lynching.

While this boxcar moment offers a vision of racial equality among the down-and-out, a subsequent lynching scene suggests that the egalitarian hobo collective is as transient as its members. While Step is unfazed by the anonymous black hobo’s story of his sexual encounter with a white prostitute, he reacts violently to the notion of Cooper, the black owner of the roadhouse, having sex with Sampson’s white daughter, and joins a lynch mob in pursuit of his old friend. What explains Step’s contradictory behavior? First, class status and sexuality mediate each woman’s claim to whiteness: perhaps the miscegenation taboo applies to the farmer’s daughter and not to the prostitute. More importantly, Attaway warns that without political consciousness, it is impossible for someone like Step to differentiate between radical and reactionary collectivism.

While Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men enjoys enduring popularity as novel, play, and film, Attaway’s novella has slipped into obscurity. It was reprinted several more times—in London in 1940; in Copenhagen (in Danish) in 1943; under the title Tough Kid in 1952 and ‘55, and a final version under the original title in 1969. In 1960, the New York Times reported that Herbert Kline was working on a film adaptation of Let Me Breathe Thunder in Mexico, but the film was never made. Recovering Attaway’s hobo narrative restores the radical edge to a popular Depression-era icon. His story draws parallels between the experiences of white hoboes and racial minorities, yet ultimately warns readers of the powerful allure of the Jim Crow lynch myth, its geographical reach, and its fundamental hypocrisy.

by Erin Royston Battat

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youhadmeathohoho · 5 years

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The Battle for Hallmark’s 2018 Christmas Queen

As the festive viewing season draws to a close, there’s one very important job left to do - and that’s to crown Hallmark’s Queen of Christmas 2018!

The two contenders are of course Candace Cameron Bure and Lacey Chabert:

Here’s a little background on these shiny-haired, shiny-toothed lovelies to kick us off:

- Both grew up on TV - Candace on Full House and Lacey on Party of Five.

- Candace has been a Christian since the age of 12, and a Republican for an unspecified period of time. Lacey is a life-long Bible fan, who endorsed John McCain’s campaign in 2008.

- Candace and Lacey have each appeared in seven Hallmark Christmas movies. SEVEN!

I think you’ll agree that we begin this battle with two evenly-matched one-woman Winter Wonderlands. So without further ado, let’s see how they stack up after this year’s offerings...

Whose movie has the best name?

A Shoe Addict’s Christmas is a very edgy, grungy name, what with its shocking reference to the sin of addiction. It certainly hooked me.

Pride, Prejudice & Mistletoe goes for the classic literature reference - being Hallmark’s second movie of this year’s crop to claim to be based on Jane Austen’s 1813 novel.

These are both undeniably with-it approaches to naming, and therefore I declare this round a tie!

Whose character has the most festive name?

Lacey plays Darcy Fitzwilliam, which is an extremely witty Pride and Prejudice in-joke, but sadly not at all festive.

Candace portrays Noelle Carpenter, a name so yule-appropriate that I’m not even mad they didn’t call her Holly. (We also learn that the character’s mother wanted to call her ‘Jingle’. This is implied to be over-the-top, but personally I’m totally down to see a lead named Jingle Turtledove within Hallmark’s 2019 output.)

Whose character is the most busy?

Lacey / Darcy works in a high-powered New York job where she spends her days pacing around, talking about financial reports and projected something-somethings. When she heads back to her hometown to spend the holidays with her family for the first time in years, the other partners scheme against her. Lacey / Darcy then finds herself having to defend her job, while also helping her Mum organise a boring small-town fundraiser, while also being wooed by Carl, her business-minded ex, not to mention Luke, the humble hometown chef.

How can Candace / Noelle possibly compete with that?

I’ll tell you how! While slaving away in a corporate role at major department store Fulton’s, Candace / Noelle is visited by an actual guardian-angel-ghost-lady who uses time travel to show her moments in her life when she took the wrong path e.g. she should re-kindle her dream of becoming a professional photographer, have a better relationship with her father, and also trust in almighty God (yay for Him!) So to summarise: we have a lady with a demanding job, a loss of faith, family issues, a desired career change, being flung around willy-nilly by TIME TRAVEL, oh and she also hangs out with a fireman a lot. Yep, I think we've found our busiest candidate.

Who is located in the most picturesque, snow-covered town?

Lacey / Darcy starts off in NY, but hoofs it quickly to the charming town of Pemberley, Ohio, where everyone knows your name and that you’ve been feeling ‘unsettled’ lately.

I failed to notice where Candace / Noelle is located - but it’s a place that features a giant department store and a glossy loft-style apartment, and thus it gave me a distinctly urban vibe. The horror!

Who has the most magical / supernatural encounters?

As mentioned above, Candace / Noelle is literally mentored by some kind of festive phantom, who keeps gifting our heroine different shoes. When tried on, these ping Candace / Noelle around to various times in her life, allowing her to put right what once went slightly, tediously wrong.

The closest Lacey / Darcy gets to a magical experience is when the waiters don’t turn up to her dumb event, so some poor children step in to do the job.

Whose path to Happy Ever After is threatened by the greatest misunderstanding with a man?

Candace / Noelle finds herself working with firefighter Jake to put together the department store’s annual Christmas Charity Gala (gosh, Hallmark, what is it with you guys and bloomin’ galas?) Jake seems fine, so we’re meant to root for them to be together. But time travel shenanigans mean Candace / Noelle almost ends up with Jake’s brother by mistake! Does that sound interesting? It’s not. I mean, it’s no Marty McFly having the hots for his own Mum.

Meanwhile, Lacey / Darcy is on track to smooch Luke The Chef, until he Badly Sees her rejecting Carl The Businessman and thinks they’re romantically reunited. This set-up is truly Shakespearean in its intrigue!

Who utters the best line of dialogue?

Candace / Noelle: “You can never have too much Christmas!”

Lacey / Darcy: “Christmas isn’t just a day or a season; it’s a state of mind.”

Which means, dear reader, that we have a Christmas miracle on our hands...

With four points apiece, these lovely ladies must share 2018′s crown!

Thank you heartily for your loyal companionship during this season’s fairly lame crop of movies. Join us again next year when we hope for more magic, a greater number of villains, and someone cute we had long forgotten from 90s TV!

#hallmark #hallmark christmas #lacey chabert #candace cameron bure #a shoe addict's christmas #pride prejudice and mistletoe

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avelera · 6 years

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On Criticsm, Deserved and Undeserved, of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”

This latest tragic Amtrak derailment has me thinking about, of all things, the book “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. In part because, in that book, the increase of train derailments was a sign of the nation’s crumble into communism due to the theft and control by low-achieving but powerful thieves in government and the brain drain of John Galt’s movement.

I grew up in a conservative household so naturally I was introduced to this book. It is, in essence, a near-future sci-fi novel which meant I could both read something mildly interesting and something my father approved of me reading, so it was a win-win. I ended up reading it twice in my lifetime, though both times I skipped the 60 page speech at the end in favor of getting back to the character drama. It wasn’t until adulthood that I came to understand how reviled the book was by the Left and it was a little after that when I understood why, and began to see the book’s flaws.

It’s been on my mind on and off for awhile to compile my thoughts on that book, because I actually feel that while much of the criticism for it is valid, and I will address that too, there are some places where the vitriol of the criticism feels... well, rather sexist. For a young woman, there actually were some valid lessons I took away from the book which I see constantly ignored, usually by people who have not read it. By contrast, I find it darkly amusing at best and offensive at worst how many people who claim to love and live that book, especially in the right wing, are precisely what the book was preaching against, something they would know if they had actually read it, or had spent even a millisecond of their time on self reflection. There are also elements of the book I will touch on briefly which make the book’s overall application to real life--as so many conservatives have-- utterly ludicrous, because the book itself doesn’t interact with real life, and yet they still use it to justify their world view. This is the more common criticism of the novel, but I’d still like to add my spin on it without the usual venom it receives because of the critic’s loathing of the book’s “fandom”, rather than its content.

I don’t expect many people to read this essay. Most people in my audience have not read Atlas Shrugged, and if they’ve even heard of it their ideas tend to be fixed whether or not they’ve read it based on their political upbringing. I was in a strange place of being completely politically uninvolved when I first read it (at age 14) and somewhat in the middle politically when I read it again years later. It’s also an 1,000 page long book, which is why I think both its promoters and its critics will often pay lip service to having read it, when they’re really only parroting another’s analysis (and that analysis inevitably leaves out huge swathes of the book’s content in order to promote a certain agenda and reading).

First, I’d like to mention the good in this book, only because it is the aspect I see most ignored by both sides. Atlas Shrugged actually has a strong feminist message, which the Left tends to ignore in favor of criticizing its overall hyper-capitalist message, and which the Right tends to ignore because they don’t want to think about the fact that Ayn Rand was also pro-abortion, anti-religion, and called Ronald Reagan a communist. She at one point wanted to have a “good” priest be one of the POV characters in the novel, but ultimately found that she could not find a single spin on the character that would actually fit her world view. I’m very glad she didn’t, as I think it would have only poured gasoline on the fire of the current right wing theocracy.

But back to its feminist message, in which we’re going to need to invoke death-of-the-author and let the text read for itself. Given Rand’s own dislike of the Feminist movement, I find it ironic how much she embodied it. Another side-effect of growing up in a conservative household was assumptions around gender roles. Even while growing up in a relatively non-religious household, and encouraged in my studies, there was just as much pervasive patriarchy as anywhere else. Certain feminine roles were assumed. This included endless selflessness as a virtue on the part of women.

Dagny Taggart is the unquestioned main character of Atlas Shrugged. While other male characters like Hank Rearden, Francisco D’Anconia, and John Galt may make appearances, its always comes back to Dagny’s journey. This alone does not seem to get mentioned very often by either side. This central novel of conservative thinking is by a woman and about a woman, with the men in it as supporting characters. This alone of course does not excuse a book, but Dagny’s journey is also about freeing women from the shackles of the utter self-destruction by selflessness that the world demands of them to this day. One more reason Ayn Rand would be horrified to see what the small men of the right wing have used her novel to justify-- namely, the legal infringement of any kind onto the personal life of an adult or on the relationship between consenting adults.

For a young woman who had every corner of the world telling her that the greatest thing in life is to grow into a role of self-sacrifice, be it for the man in her life, or for children, or that being a caretaker was the most noble role she could ever hope to achieve even at the expense of any personal dreams, Dagny Taggart was a role model. She was a railway executive who had climbed her way up through the ranks from childhood to adulthood, spending long hours and working hard because it was what she wanted to do. This wasn’t a traditionally feminine industry either. Unlike Sex in the City, which was popular at the time I was re-reading the novel, I remember pointing out that even in such a female-centric show which was deemed progressive in how it showcased working women, they were still largely in roles deemed acceptable for modern women. Fashion, PR, art, and even certain practices of law wouldn’t cause even the most raging chauvinist to necessarily bat an eyelash if it’s where a woman ends up (before she meets her man and settles down to raise a family). But Dagny had no interest in a family, she took lovers as interested her without even a flicker of shame, did not sacrifice herself or her happiness for them and actively rejected those who asked her to give up what she loved for them. But most inspiring of all, she worked in railways, because she loved it and she couldn’t imagine any other life.

What Ayn Rand had to say to women about denying selflessness and self-sacrifice in favor of personal and career self-actualization seems to be the one element no one wants to talk about. She gave a role model for young women interested in working, and more than most literature to this day, gave a role model for if they wanted to work outside traditionally feminine fields. She told them not to sacrifice themselves for the men or the families in their lives just because it was expected of them. She told them they could and should take lovers without shame, without sacrificing themselves just because some man wants to turn them into their personal domestic slave. She gave a roadmap for denying those men so you could live your own life. I find the Left curiously silent on this point, I can only assume as I said above because they haven’t actually read the book. The Right is silent on this point too, though I imagine for different reasons, like their male dominance and the number of them that seem to curiously think Rearden or Galt (who barely appears in the novel) are the main characters.

That, however, is where my praise of the novel ends. I think as a woman in a man’s world, Ayn Rand had the authority to speak as a professional, a writer, a refugee, and an intellectual on the topic of Dagny. She could provide that role model for other women. Her knowledge of economics and markets, however, leaves something to be desired despite the fact the so-called economy obsessed right wing would put her worldview on a pedestal.

I called Atlas Shrugged a sci-fi novel for a reason. That it is not shelved as one is unfortunate. In a sci-fi novel if you ignore sweeping aspects of the real world in favor of making your point or creating your alternate world, the reader generally understands that and the world and author don’t generally try to pretend that is is actually realistic and representative beyond its key points. For some baffling reason, conservatives think that the economy in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” has even a passing acquaintance with reality, and that it could somehow be mapped onto reality. As I said above, I think that Ayn Rand has some profound things to say to young, unattached women looking to establish themselves in the world. I’m not sure what she has to say to everyone else.

The world of Atlas Shrugged cannot possibly represent the real world because it doesn’t actually contain major elements of the real world which are key to its own worldview of a hyper capitalist society. All the industries represented are commodities and utilities, such as copper and steel, transportation and energy. There are little to no references to structural cultural barriers. Indeed, culture in general is limited and only to prove the point. I cannot speak to all industries but the most damning absences from the narrative to me are the absence of marketing, the global economy, and of children.

I may not work in a commodities or utilities, but I have worked in marketing. Ayn Rand dreams of a world where the best product wins, unless an unfair government is putting its finger on the scale. And that might be true, again if we were only talking about commodities and utilities. But there is no mention of consumer products. There is no mention of how the sophistry of marketing and advertising can be used to make the lesser product seem the better one. There’s no mention of how humans may be convinced through lies and half-truths as to which product is higher quality. There’s little mention of food quality control, or the fact that it’s all well and good to say the market will prevent people from putting out poison products, but that doesn’t really help to boycott a company in the future if your baby just died from spoiled milk. She does not at all reference that successful titans of industry can become successful and stay successful by selling sub-par products that bury the higher quality products through cheaper production costs.

This is a huge oversight when you try to apply her world to ours. And it’s not like she couldn’t have known this, already products like Edison’s diamond-tip gramophone with its superior sound had been buried by cheaper-made models with the help of marketing. But the fact she doesn’t address it is fine as a sci-fi author, it’s not fine when right wing thinkers take her word as gospel.

Atlas Shrugged also shares with many post-apocalyptic sci-fi stories the total absence of a wider world. Just as we asked in The Hunger Games why isn’t anyone intervening in the fallen U.S., where did everyone go, we’re wondering in Atlas Shrugged why no one is making cheaper products for import, even if it’s by slave labor. The case within the novel is that the whole world, the entire world has fallen back into the Dark Ages because of communism, with only the U.S. hanging by a thread. At the very least it’s western hemisphere-centric, with the only other action we actually see taking place in South America when Francisco D’Anconia’s mines get nationalized (and he murders people in retribution, let’s not forget that).

But just as Rand doesn’t talk about marketing, she also doesn’t really talk about the availability of natural resources, or any kind of impact on the environment. Resources in her world are essentially infinite, if one is only a strong enough personality to go find them. There is no long-term damage that we can see. There are no toxic chemicals to be spilled and poison local communities. That’s because there are, in essence, no communities at all. Cities just sort of exist as a capitalist function, as do countries, there is no pooling of knowledge and resources for any other successful purpose than personal financial achievement. It ignores an endless amount of actual history (which is barely mentioned in her world), or anthropology, or the natural world, or sociology, which are usually only brought up in order to be dismissed.

But I think the most glaring and purposeful absence in her books are children. It’s because that’s where her world breaks down entirely. As a childless unmarried intellectual, Ayn Rand didn’t move in many circles where children were central. It allowed her to write a book where children and infants are occasionally glimpsed in order to make a point about poisoning the next generation, but the actual work of childrearing goes largely ignored. It may be one more reason that the men of the right wing don’t even see how much these books don’t work in the real world, because they’re still allowed to sit outside that process and treat their ability to do so as a personal achievement rather than a privilege.

None of the men or women in Ayn Rand’s book worry about the capitalist market poisoning their children. They don’t have to worry about maternal leave, or sexism towards pregnant women. They don’t have to take the time out of their day for pre or post natal care, or take their kids to school, or take a day off from work when their children are sick. As said above, there are no communities in her world. Presumably, everyone makes enough to have a nanny to tend their children, but how does the nanny make enough? Rand is silent on these points. And I must assume she knows what she’s doing, because she knew that to show the natural “communism” of the family unit would be to water down her message.

And let me reiterate, as a sci-fi author it’s fine if you don’t show every aspect of the real world if it would water down the point your sci-fi novel is trying to achieve. I can’t help but notice that Rand is fairly unique in the criticism she receives for not creating an exhaustively complete alternate universe, that there are flaws in her argument when you show that the world of Atlas Shrugged is not rigorously functional. Asimov, Rodenberry, and Heinlein don’t get nearly as much flack. (I can’t help but notice the gender of these writers, and I think the Left needs to be a little more self-reflective of why Rand is allowed to be gleefully torn down with such vitriol, whereas many male writers on the same topic are given respectful consideration.) But then again, those male writers are shelved under sci-fi, whereas Rand is one of those rare “lucky” sci-fi writers who was graduated from that “lower” genre to the vaults of literature because we arbitrarily decided her book is important enough to belong there. Despite the fact it literally contains magical machines, sonic bombs, futuristic metals, and a post-apocalyptic global wasteland that wouldn’t be out of place in any number of zombie apocalypses.

I could go on to discuss the fact that many right wing thinkers in government more closely match the jowly, spoiled, ignorant villains of her book than they do the titans of industry that are her protagonists. Someday I’ll put together a proper analysis along with sources and a more recent re-read pointing out just how many of the people who thump Atlas Shrugged as if it were their Bible fit exactly into the archetype Rand was denouncing, while they in turn denounce those who fit her vision. But that’s not Rand’s fault, that’s her fandom’s fault.

The more important lesson is, people can’t continue to treat the sci-fi world of Atlas Shrugged as some sort of model for the real world, any more than they should do so with Asimov’s Foundation, or Herbert’s Dune. Those were contemporary sci-fi works talking about their own time periods. For goodness sake, Ayn Rand doesn’t even predict America’s trucking or aviation dependency, the fact that the world takes place in what can only be termed locomotive-punk should alone disqualify it as a model. But I do think we are unfair to her about the topics that she was qualified to pontificate on, and for that I give credit to the whole rambling, sprawling, pseudo-researched mess for giving me Dagny Taggart, the first an only unapologetic female titan of a male-dominated industry main character I’ve seen to this day.

#my writing #my meta #apropos to nothing #///#//////#///////#atlas shrugged #ayn rand #politics #current events

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