The $16.4 billion-dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe, history's most profitable movie franchise, has made most of its money off films about white dudes kicking alien, robot, and evil scientist ass. But after Black Panther raked in $1.3 billion this year, it seems like Marvel Studios is taking the hint that people want more representation in their comic book movies. Late last week, the company signaled it'll be giving fans what they crave—announcing plans to bring the MCU's first female Muslim superhero to the big screen.
In an interview with the BBC, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said a film including Ms. Marvel—a.k.a Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old Muslim girl from New Jersey—is "definitely sort-of in the works."
"We have plans for that once we’ve introduced Captain Marvel to the world," Feige said.
In the comics, Khan isn't the first woman to fight evil under the name Ms. Marvel. She was originally the female counterpart to Captain Marvel, a character moviegoers had to Google after that Avengers: Infinity War ending, whose secret identity was Carol Danvers. Danvers—who's getting her own standalone film starring Brie Larson—ditched the "Ms." moniker when she took over for the recently deceased Captain Marvel, giving Khan a chance to take the reins.
Khan, herself a superhero nerd, idolizes Danvers. After she discovers her superhuman ability to kick ass by shape-shifting and lengthening her arms and legs, Khan dons a shalwar kameez-inspired red, blue, and yellow costume and gets to work. Inspired by creator Sana Amanat's own experiences growing up Muslim in America, Khan still has to balance crime-fighting with her medical studies and the expectations of her family.
There aren't too many details on which upcoming films Khan might appear in, or the role she might play in patching the Thanos-sized hole Infinity War poked in the galaxy. But Marvel's fanbase is already psyched on the new character—wasting no time in arguing about who should play the Muslim ambassador to the MCU, and warning producers not to make the mistake of whitewashing the role.
Bringing a young, female Muslim into the biggest thing to happen to movies since the sequel is a strong move on Marvel's part. Let's just hope it doesn't pull another Doctor Strange on us.
It’s Ramadan and my mother is in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove preparing a big feast. She’s fasting even though she is a 64-year-old diabetic. As for myself? Earlier in the day, I had a huge fish and chips platter for lunch, but my Muslim family believes I’m fasting with them.
This has gone on for years.
During the month of Ramadan, most of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims will observe by basically not partaking in any vice for 30 days. From sunrise to sunset all able-bodied Muslims are required to “fast”; prohibited from eating, drinking (yes, even water), smoking, cursing, bad-mouthing, and any sexual behavior. Fasting during this month is one of the five pillars of Islam and not doing so can not only invite social ridicule within the Muslim community but in certain Muslim countries can also lead to a fine or even being jailed. Most Muslims look forward to Ramadan every year because they see it as a religious cleanse that leaves them more pure and sets a tone for the rest of the year. That’s if you actually believe in the faith and practice it, which I don’t. But the Muslims around me don’t know that.
Unfortunately myself and many others like me dread Ramadan because it means another month of being dishonest to our Muslim families and friends. See, there are many reasons why someone who comes from a Muslim background doesn’t fast during Ramadan. They may still have faith in the religion but don’t take it as seriously as they should. They might think fasting is more for traditional Muslims and they consider themselves more of a casual Muslim. Another reason is they may have completely left the religion but haven’t “come out” to their Muslim community—something that many young people from these backgrounds struggle with and this is exactly where I fall. Like many other millennials we just aren’t religious, but we just so happen to come from a religion that is customarily harsher with the idea of apostasy compared to other religions in the West.
This results in an ideological struggle between older and younger generations of Muslims that has even been depicted in recent pop culture, from the bacon eating scene in Aziz Ansari’s Master of None to Kumail Nanjiani’s The Big Sick where his parents disown him because he wants to marry an American white woman. This is happening in many Muslim homes, where first-generation millennials have views on religion that go against the very strict nature Islam can have. We might view ourselves as Muslim by identity, and even speak out against Muslim discrimination, but are far from practicing. Ramadan for us can be extremely complicated to navigate since it’s so important in Islam. Rather than “coming out” to our family and even friends, we know that if we can just get through the month, we’re pretty much good for the rest of the year. Some might fast just for the sake of it with no real spiritual intention, just for show. Others might try their best to avoid their Muslim associates and families altogether.
But probably the most insincere practice is what I call “fake fasting”— acting like you been fasting all day and “breaking your fast” at night as if you weren’t eating double cheeseburgers and chugging diet cokes all day. Many do this in order to keep the façade going that they are still a practicing Muslim. This is done only to avoid cruel judgment from other Muslims and is totally not the point of fasting during Ramadan, which is actually supposed to be a spiritual journey of struggle in order to come closer to God.
Hiding the fact I’m not fasting from the Muslims around me was difficult at first, but it’s a skill I’ve now fine tuned. It all really depends on the size of the town you live in and how many Muslims are in it—the smaller the town, the more challenging. If you’re bound to run into a Muslim you know, you certainly don’t want to be caught holding a Starbucks caramel latte during the day. They’ll give a piercing look of judgment followed by disappointment. I’ve had times where I literally looked left and right before drinking water while driving around my mid-size suburban hometown during the day. When I go out for lunch, I always make sure to eat at restaurants Muslims wouldn’t be anywhere near—bars and Hooters are always a safe bet. Obviously avoid the halal markets and the falafel joints. Let’s say you get through the day without anyone knowing you’ve been eating or drinking, now the ultimate challenge: you have to act like you’re just as hungry as your fellow Muslims at sunset. This is where guilt can really set in. You sit down for dinner where everyone has legit been starving all day; meanwhile, you ate a big bowl of chili just a couple of hours prior. Sometimes certain people can tell just by looking at you that you haven’t been fasting; it’s like a weird sixth sense they have, and you just have to hope they don’t call you out.
This puts myself and others like me in a weird predicament. Either we just come out and admit we don’t fast and face whatever backlash, or we continue to live a lie for one month out of every year. But until I do end up making a decision, I’m going to enjoy this chicken kebab over rice.
My dad was super against it and always made me get boy ones instead, but, one year, I somehow convinced my mum to buy me a My Little Pony stable playset.
Unfortunately, when my dad found out, he took it back to Toys "R" Us and swapped it for a Stretch Armstrong. Not even the slightly-more-queer-friendly Fetch Armstrong. The big, butch, boring muscle man, Stretch.
I got around this system by playing with the girliest boy toys I could trick my parents into getting for me. Like Janine from Ghostbusters and Castaspella and any video game with a lady character.
One time, my school had a charity thing where you could get sponsored to go to classes in costume. I, along with two friends, decided to dress as Eternal, a three-piece girl group I was really into. I borrowed some of my sister's clothes, and spent a whole weekend making a wig out of a hat and some yarn.
When I got to school, it turned out to have been a prank. The other two boys didn't dress up, and I had to spend the entire day in a denim mini skirt and platforms, alone. Luckily, I was able to use the homemade wig to hide the fact I was crying.
Anyway. None of that kind of behavior was on display at last weekend’s RuPaul’s DragCon, an annual drag convention with events in New York and Los Angeles. For its second year, the convention had free entrance for children under ten, and a kids zone with a bounce house, arts and crafts, and a slate of kid-friendly activities.
I went along to the LA event and spoke to some of the kids I saw walking around the convention hall.
Breckin, 11 years old
VICE: What brings you to DragCon? Breckin: It was actually a Christmas present from my parents/ I’ve always been in love with drag.
Who’re some of your favorite queens? Local or RuPaul’s Drag Race?
Gimme both. For RuPaul’s Drag Race, my favorite queen is probably Alaska, but I like all of them really. And then local, the Bratpack group I really like. I’m close with one of them, Kendall Gender.
That’s a really good name. Right?
What do you like about drag? Well, I started watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, and that was the real push to get me into drag, but my mom used to be on the floats for the Vancouver Pride parade, so I would always look at the queens up on the floats and admire them and their style. But I started doing drag when I was nine years old and that was when it really took off for me, I started learning all about the culture.
How did you develop your drag persona? Well, I don’t actually fully have a drag persona. I don’t even have a drag name yet, because normally you get your drag name from your drag mother, and that’s like a super organic thing. Like, it’s a queen that nurtures you, and that you learn a lot from. I don’t have a drag mother yet so I don’t really have a drag persona really. When I’m in drag it’s just an overconfident me, really.
Is this the first time you’ve been out in public in drag? No, no. I’m quite often going out to whatever all ages events I can get into. I’ve been on public transit a lot, and I’ve just been kinda of going around the city in drag whenever is necessary. I’m quite active in the city in my drag.
Brody, nine years old
VICE: What brings you to DragCon? Brody: My brother wanted to come, and I wanted to see what it is and what it’s about. And my favorite drag queen is Peppermint.
What do you like about Peppermint? I like her dresses and stuff that she makes.
Who did your makeup today? My brother. He puts it on. I don’t know how to put on makeup.
What do you like about makeup? The eyeliner and stuff.
What do you like about drag? I don’t know. Brody's brother: He’s done it a couple of times.
You’ve worn drag before? Brody's brother: At home.
What was your drag look when you wore it? Brother: Say dramatic. Brody: Dramatic, yeah.
Desmond Is Amazing, ten years old
VICE: How long have you been doing drag for? Desmond: I’ve been doing drag ever since I was two. What I would do is I would take my mom’s towels and bed sheets and anything I could get my hands on and turn them into savage outfits, yaas.
How would you describe your drag look? I would describe my drag as artistic, amazing, fierce, and inspirational.
Who are you most excited to see here? RuPaul!
Have you met RuPaul before? Yes. I actually got to cut the ribbon at New York City DragCon with him. It was fun.
What do you like about drag? It’s a way of expressing yourself. Of expressing your inner you.
You’ve done interviews and stuff before, right? What has the reaction been like? A lot of people love me. But there’s some hate. And I just pay them no mind, because they’re not as fierce as me and my motto is, "Be yourself always no matter what anyone says and pay haters no mind because they’re not as fierce as you, yaas!"
Lucien, three, and Garren, one, with parents Jeff and Cassie
VICE: Can I interview you? Jeff: You can try! I don’t know if you’ll get much.
What brings you to DragCon? Jeff: Just big fans of Drag Race.
Are the kids fans, too? Jeff: When it’s on, other than the flashy colors, I don’t know if they pay attention to anything else.
Was the skirt your idea? Jeff: He picked it out. Cassie: I actually made it for him. He asked for a skirt, so I let him pick out the fabric and I made it.
Is it just a look for DragCon? Jeff: He’s had the skirt for a while. He actually just said he wanted the skirt, so she made it for him. Cassie: Probably at least six months. And he’s worn it before to the playground.
What’s the reaction been like? Cassie: Mostly it’s fine. I’ve had a few people give me funny looks, but mostly it’s just been like, Alright he’s playing. Jeff: I’ve had no issue at the grocery store with him in it.
Naomi, nine years old
VICE: What brings you to DragCon? Naomi's friend, Nora: We’re from Tiny Bangs. We’re an alternative kids clothing line. It’s run by Naomi, her little sister, and their mom Kirsten.
Do you design the clothes, Naomi? Naomi: Me and my mom do.
Did you have a hand in designing [your outfit]? Naomi: My mom made this. Everything I’m wearing except the boots and [the ponytail]. I’m a toxic slime queen.
Is toxic slime always your look? Or do you mix it up? Naomi: I mix it up.
What are some other looks you’ve had? Naomi: I’ve had angel, I’ve had a rainbow one. Nora: What’re you doing the rest of this weekend? Naomi: Cher. And then for the last one, on Sunday, I’m doing a Lisa Frank look.
Have you been to DragCon before? Naomi: This is actually my first time.
Do you like any of the queens that are here? Naomi: I wanna meet Katya and RuPaul.
What do you like about Katya and RuPaul? Naomi: I love when [Katya] did the lip sync about all her names, and I really liked those really cool pink pigtails she did.
Alia, nine, and Quentin, two, with parents Austin and Chelsey
Who picked your outfits? Austin: [Alia] actually made hers.
You made that? That’s amazing. Austin: It’s an Alaska outfit. Chelsea: [Quentin is] a skirt boy. Austin: That’s an Adore Delano classic right here. Little Adore Delano.
Is Alaska your favorite queen? Alia: Yeah.
What do you like about Alaska? Alia: Everything. Austin: Alaska is all of our favorite, honestly.
Does [Quentin] like Drag Race? Austin: Yeah. Alia: He likes wearing my dresses and running around.
Thanks to this error, I have rented a tuxedo, paid for an internet domain, and now hope that some rich dope in the San Francisco Bay area is willing to pay over $1,000 for the services of a luxury notary.
This is how I got here. I blame the gig economy.
Much like laserjet printers or Wolf Blitzer, the gig economy is an example of something that sounds much cooler than it actually is. First, there’s gig, which is what chill dudes call work. For example, being a paralegal is a job, recycling surfboards into coffee tables is a gig. Then, you have economy, which connotes money flow and income, things that may not necessarily be cool, but are helpful if you wanted to buy, say, a surfboard coffee table. The gig economy, however, struggles to live up to its promising moniker.
Were it semantically accurate, then the gig economy would represent a surfeit of fun, high-paying jobs that require little time. Instead, it’s merely a buzz term for on-demand employment tied to smartphone apps. And while these have benefits, like being able to start and stop your shift whenever you please, they don’t provide any actual benefits, like healthcare or overtime compensation.
You can tell the corporations making fortunes off the backs of gig economy workers are based in California, as so many of the jobs through them require cars. But I do not like driving. So Uber and Lyft were out. Beyond that, whether it’s Instacart, Caviar, or TaskRabbit, making extra scratch via an app-based job so often means being a courier. For folks like me who hate driving and/or don’t own a car, our options are limited.
Rather than use technology as an entry point, I instead wanted to try my hand at an ancient gig. I would become a notary public, and, ideally, become insanely rich. Notaries are a kind of technology in and of themselves—human Captchas who verify identities in person. Autonomous cars may replace Uber drivers one day, but a notary’s greatest qualification is the fact that he or she is human. That, and they can afford the $40 application and examination fee to become a notary.
I have long admired notaries. They have a relaxed yet confident sense of authority, like a park ranger or the person who jostles your safety bar on a roller coaster. They are the bouncers of life, checking IDs not outside of bars but inside banks, post offices, and FedEx Kinkos. They also charge for their services, meaning I could have a flexible stream of income and act as my own boss. Best of all, I wouldn’t even have to drive.
Modern notaries are members of a proud tradition whose lineage, according to the Colorado Notary blog, can be traced to ancient Sumeria. To become a notary is to embark on a journey into the past. I would be finding my place in history, not as a descendant of kings, but as something even more regal: the descendant of the guys who notarized stuff for kings.
In California, notaries are required to take a six-hour class and pass a test administered by the secretary of state’s office. I took my course and exam at the Oakland Airport Holiday Inn Express. What it lacked in glamor, it made up for with free coffee in the lobby. All the bathrooms required keys for entry, and this news sparked a minor panic among the caffeinated notary hopefuls who had gathered in the conference room. Was this our first test? Does the Notary Way require the taming of all bodily functions?
California requires prospective notaries to submit fingerprints for identification purposes, and we lined up to get ours scanned. This was performed by a third-party vendor, and while its setup of a Gateway laptop and USB-connected scanner didn’t look too Orwellian, the thought of submitting my biometrics to the state gave me pause. Still, the prospect of making some sweet notary coin kept me in line, and I began to daydream about future business plans.
When we took our seats, our instructor, Mary (name changed, as privacy is a major tenet of the notary code), introduced herself, and her raspy smoker’s voice portended to frequent breaks. She passed around a sheet we would each have to sign seven separate times throughout the day to confirm our attendance. My fellow students (I counted 28) all had notebooks open and pens stacked neatly before them. A woman a row ahead of me took gulps from a water bottle that intermittently blinked red to remind her when to hydrate. These are the types of people who become notaries.
Mary’s first order of business was a caveat, and it struck me like a Sumerian blade. “You’re not going to make money being a notary,” she said. “If you want to make a profit, do what I do and become a loan signee. I teach that course as well. Loan signees make their own schedules. I just drive from client to client, and I can make like four to eight grand a month doing it.”
I thought being a notary would be the perfect, lucrative side-gig. I have no interest in becoming a loan signee, which seems like a full-time job and apparently involves driving. Perhaps she was just pushing the loan signee course, I assured myself. Things looked bleak. Thankfully, there were only six more hours to go.
Mary read through some frequently asked questions and spent a disproportionate amount of time on whether a DUI could prevent you from becoming a notary. “This one comes up all the time, but DUIs are fine,” she assured us.
The state exam was difficult, Mary warned, but the company running the course offers a test-pass guarantee and lets you take the class over for free until you succeed. “I have a 98 percent pass rate,” she boasted, and a woman in the front row applauded wildly.
As Mary went through the coursework, she proved to be an affable and compelling teacher (especially given the dry subject matter), and the entire class stayed engaged for the duration. The woman who had applauded was perhaps too engaged, and she said, “uh-huh,” “OK,” or “yep” after every single thing Mary said during the six-hour session.
As we started to establish our notary base knowledge, Mary regaled us with examples of her real-life notary experiences. She frequently used the term “in the field” to describe notary work, which made me feel like we were cops at a precinct meeting getting ready to hit the beat. It was all very exciting. When she began a story about notarizing something for a cancer patient, concerned gasps bubbled throughout the class. “The woman made a full recovery,” Mary gave a theatrical pause, “and the document I notarized for her? It was the deed to her new house.” The class burst into hearty cheers. Mary isn’t just a master notary—she is also a skilled raconteur.
She gave us tips for checking IDs (Arizona drivers licenses are tough because the state lets you go ages without taking a new photo), as well as practice reps on some test documents. In California, notaries have an option to make people sign an oath to God, or to a general “higher power.” Mary told us to always opt for the “higher power,” as someone could later testify in court that they didn’t believe in God, thus making the notarization void.
Here are some other things that surprised me about being a notary: 1) It doesn’t matter what your signature looks like. 2) As a notary, you are an employee of the secretary of state. 3) Notaries don’t need to understand the content of a letter; it could even be in a foreign language. You only notarize the signature. And 4) It is against the law to advertise yourself as a notary in Spanish because notaries are lawyers in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, and to present yourself as such would be misleading.
The most a notary can charge in California is $15 per signature. When we learned this, a classmate raised his hand and said a notary once charged him $40. This riled up the entire class. Mary recommended going back to the store he'd been to to perform a sting operation. The woman who had been crying excitedly offered to go with him, insisting that they do it right this instant. The man kindly declined.
Notaries who overcharge are subject to a $750 fine. It is just one of the many potential penalties notaries can incur. Fail to apply a thumbprint in situations that require one? That’s a $2,500 fine. Accidentally give legal advice? Pay $1,000 to the state. Commit perjury? That’ll be $10,000 (and it’s relatively easy to accidentally commit perjury as a notary).
Toward the end of class, Mary asked who was taking the course at the behest of their employer. Most people raised their hands. A few worked for banks, others for title companies, and one guy was about to start at the UPS store. I was one of the few attendees who intended to strike out on my own, a significant risk considering I had no financial support from a larger company. What’s worse, I would have to find clients by myself.
To maintain the integrity of the exam process, Mary was forbidden from being present when the state proctors prepared to hand out tests, so she bid us adieu before I could ask for advice on how to build a client base.
The test contained 30 questions and was as difficult as advertised. We were responsible for knowing 180 laws, but Mary had prepared us for the content and rhythm of the exam, and her voice pinged in my head as I worked my way through the scan bubbles. She doesn’t have a 98 percent pass rate for nothing.
Upon completion, the proctor informed us we would have to wait up to 15 business days to get our results back. A man misheard and asked, “15 hundred days?”
With two weeks to kill, I put some feelers out around my neighborhood to gauge the demand for a notary service. The cashier at the grocery store gave me a flat-out “no” when I inquired if he could use one. My dry cleaner said she has used her neighbor, who is a notary, in the past, but if she ever needs something notarized in the future and I happen to be dropping off clothes, she’ll be sure to tell me (if she remembers to).
There are, according to Mary, 350,000 notaries in California. Given its population of over 39 million people, there is one notary for every 112 people in the state. Considering 23 percent of the state is under the age of 18, that leaves only 87 eligible customers for me because I can’t notarize the signatures of babies who have nothing to get notarized in the first place. Let’s say 25 percent of those people will need something notarized this year (a wildly optimistic estimate), then, at the maximum $15 price point, I would make $165.
Mary was being generous when she said you won’t make money as a notary. The reality is actually far more dire. Here’s my rough tally for how much it costs to become a notary:
Course: $79.95
Application: $20
Notary Exam: $20
Duplicate Commission: $10
Authentication Certificate: $20
State Seal: $5
Certification: $5
Shipping fees: $6
Surety Bond: $40
Stamp and Embosser: $100
Notary journal: $35
That’s $340.95. Meaning if I work my butt off to get my estimated 11 customers, I would make a grand total of negative $175.95. Some side-gig.
There was hope, however. It was a long shot, but, during class, Mary mentioned a loophole (though she didn’t refer to it as such). While California notaries are prohibited from charging more than $15 per signature, they can levy a “professional fee.” This is normally used to cover travel expenses, but I had a better idea, one that came to me as I noted the “luxury” services advertised on my dry cleaner’s wire hangers.
There are luxury cars, luxury hotels, and luxury dry cleaners. There are people who make custom sneakers for $10,000 a pair. If a product or service has a market, someone somewhere is willing to overpay wildly for it. But... where are the luxury notaries? The question may seem silly, but it’s the kind of thinking that brought the world UberBlack. By accident, I'd discovered a niche no one has yet bothered to fill. With the tech and gig economy, things aren’t “unnecessary” or “stupid”—they are “disruptive.” And, thanks to my idea, I’d bring a little Silicon Valley disruption to an old Sumerian line of work.
As I planted the seeds to this potentially lucrative side-gig, the state sent me my notary test results over email. Scores of 70 (out of 100) or higher are required to pass, and I aced it—I got a 79. In order to become certified, I still have to go into the county clerk’s office to take an oath and register, but, until then, I will be offering my services as California’s only luxury notary.
To do so, I obtained a tuxedo, took some photos, and bought the website URL. These extra fees totaled $157, meaning I was now $332.95 in the hole. I had no choice but to commit, so I outlined my services. In addition to wearing the tux, I'd also play classical music from a bluetooth speaker during ID check. I'd offer cheese and crackers. Only the good kind. (NO WHEAT THINS.) I'd offer a champagne toast at the completion of our transaction, naturally. I'd also call clients “m’lady” and “dear squire.” (This one is a maybe; I’m still workshopping it.)
Things are well underway for this enterprise. Beyond establishing luxurynotary.com, I have also printed out flyers to pass around the ritziest parts of town.
At just $15 per signature (plus a professional fee of $1,000), I can provide California’s classiest clientele with the notary service they deserve. Being a notary may not be a lucrative job, but it takes just one commission as a luxury notary to make it all worthwhile.
This desperate plan is likely my only chance to make any money as a notary. So please, if you have any wealthy friends or colleagues who enjoy the finer things in life, direct them to luxurynotary.com. Lead the rich to my luxurious water. Let my tux, my fancy crackers, etc. be the blinking water bottle that tells them when to drink. Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.
Nearly half of the young people in the US freelance—either as a side hustle or main source of income. Freelancing and working in the gig economy (think Uber, Airbnb, Taskrabbit) has become increasingly important as traditional workplaces and corporate structures change, and telecommuting becomes more popular.
But the freelance life can be a tricky one. Keeping track of invoices, taxes, and unpredictable schedules can be exhausting, even if it allows for more freedom and flexibility. And without the safety net of a salary and benefits, millennial workers can find themselves left in the lurch.
On today's episode of The VICE Guide to Right Now Podcast, we talk to Anita Hamilton, editor-in-chief of FREE, a VICE vertical about personal finance tailored to young people. Hamilton wants the site to be a place for this generation to come for stories on budgeting and money—without patronizing assumptions or unrealistic goals.
On March 8, 2015 Malaysian Airlines flight 370 left Kuala Lumpur, headed for Beijing. Less than an hour after takeoff it deviated from its flight path, flying in a southwesterly direction until it eventually plunged 239 people into a remote swath of the Indian Ocean.
Now, just over four years later, the overwhelming consensus from experts is that the disaster was no accident. Because as air crash investigator Larry Vance summarises: “the disappearance of MH370 was a man-made event.”
Current Affairs show 60 Minutes was responsible for bringing together five experts from around the world to discuss their learnings on Sunday night. While they disagreed on certain points, all five thought the most likely scenario was that Malaysian Airlines pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, flew the plane deliberately off course and ditched into the ocean.
First, they point to the way that the plane’s communications systems were manually cut before the plane quietly traversed Thai and Malaysian airspace, heading south. There was no communication with any air traffic controllers in the hours after, and no emergency distress calls.
A particularly affecting piece of evidence came from senior pilot and instructor, Simon Hardy who noted that MH370 had made an odd detour over the Malaysian region of Penang, which happens to be the pilot’s homestate. In the same way that pilots will dip their wing over famous landmarks to give passengers a better look, Simon believes that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah wanted to wish his childhood home one final goodbye.
For air crash investigator Larry Vance, the most damning piece of evidence washed up on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion in 2015. This was the infamous “flaperon,” which is a movable part of the wing controlling the plane’s roll and bank. Surprisingly for Larry, the flaperon was found almost completely intact, indicating that the plane had hit the water slowly and in a controlled landing.
In an article published in Tuesday’s the Australian, Larry explained that in previous crash investigations, planes that crash into water are usually reduced to tiny fragments. “When Swissair 111 hit the ocean at high speed off Nova Scotia, it exploded due to the hydrodynamic pressure of impacting with the water and came apart into some two million pieces,” Larry wrote. “In the case of MH370, essentially, the entire right-wing flaperon was recovered… there should have remained little doubt that a pilot was controlling MH370 at the end of its flight.”
As Larry Vance suggested on 60 Minutes, his article, and upcoming book, all this suggests that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah deliberately depressurised the plane, knocking all passengers and staff unconscious, and then piloted the plane on a suicide mission to a predetermined remote location where he knew there was little chance the plane would be found.
This is despite the fact that intense scrutiny of Captain Shah’s home life and medical records have failed to show any evidence of mental illness. There was however a flight simulator found at his home, with a deleted file that included a practice run over the Indian Ocean.
“The simplicity of the disappearance of MH370 comes down to this: either it was a criminal act or it was not,” writes Larry Vance. “The evidence confirms it was a criminal act, committed by one individual who, as a pilot in the aeroplane, had a simple means to carry it out.”
As far as regular exercise goes, yoga is my friend. Like all my favourite pastimes, it's on YouTube and you can do it in your pants. Therefore, it sidesteps the whole "leaving the house" issue that typically prevents me from doing anything resembling cardio. It's also the only thing besides manic depression that allows you to lie on the floor hugging yourself for 30 minutes and can call it a workout.
My current practice mostly involves sitting cross-legged in my room every night, doing breathing exercises and high-key checking myself out in the mirror. Suffice to say, it has become a very solitary experience. So when I received an email inviting me to attend a "doom metal yoga class" last Friday, I had reservations. The last time I tried to get involved in group exercise was a year ago at a spin class led by a hype Australian woman yelling "PUSH" over a playlist I'm going to assume was called something like "1000% Drum and Bass", and it pissed me off so much I just sat on the bike very aggressively not spinning.
Counterpoint: it was 18 degrees on Friday, and literally anything is better than being in the office in those conditions. Also: doom metal. So along I went.
DO.OMYOGA is run by Kamellia Mckayed, who leads the class, and Sanna Charles, a photographer and filmmaker who helps source the music and match it to the flows. Described as "a slow vinyasa based yoga practise set to a selection of music from the heavier and vibrational end of the music spectrum", DO.OMYOGA promises an "intense immersive doom metal experience".
Simply put: you do a whole bunch of downward facing dogs to Pallbearer and stuff.
It may not be the first class of its kind, but it's definitely a format that seems to be on the rise. Yoga has been a mainstream form of exercise for years now, duly folded into the crazes of #wellness and #mindfulness, which attempt combat the un-sustainability of late capitalism with... more capitalism! So it makes sense that smaller communities would begin to sprout up again. Some sound more legit than others – Drake yoga and noise yoga are things that exist, for example – but out of all the unlikely unions, doom metal seems to make the most sense.
It may sound oxymoronic to anyone who hears the word "metal" and immediately envisions a circle pit set to "Reign in Blood", but doom has always had a beneficial relationship with the spiritual and esoteric. References are everywhere: Sunn O))) wear hooded robes on stage and wrote an album partly inspired by a Lebanese megalith; the cover of the most recent Wolves in the Throne Room album is a painting by Russian occult artist Denis Forkas; the rhythm section of San Jose doom metal trio Sleep literally formed a band named after the Hindu concept of Om, and one of their songs goes: "Descends supine grace of the luminant / Attunes to access light of celestial form".
Those are just a few random examples, but you get the gist. Doom metal and unexplained cosmic energies, man. It's a vibe.
Anyway, so I was on my way to doom metal yoga and my arse was sweating. As I mentioned, I'm not one for regular physical exertion. I don’t own a single item of lycra clothing, just a six year-old pair of adidas leggings and loads of football shorts I’ve acquired from various boyfriends.
I'm telling you this for two reasons: 1) This was a taster session ahead of a 250-capacity classes they’ll be doing at Download Festival this year, and we were all given the option to wear some Download-branded yoga pants, which I was thankful for at the time because my outfit was already proving unsuitable (this is also why we’re all dressed alike – it’s not some mad athleisurewear cult for people who grew up on Myspace). And 2) I'm hoping it will explain this wardrobe malfunction.
(The author, middle-left) Just wanted to publish this photo of my arse tbh.
The thing about yoga pants is they have a lot of stretch in them, and the thing about my arse is it's huge. I did have concerns about this beforehand, but I examined the situation indoors, where the sun could not bless my body with light, meaning I could not fully comprehend quite how see-through my visibly taut yoga pants were going to get.
I have a fantastic arse so I’m not mad about it, but it’s a disarming fact to be made aware of in retrospect. So, to whomever was behind me: I’m sorry / you’re welcome.
Moving on.
To begin, we sat for several minutes with our eyes closed while Kamellia said a lot of wise, meditative things that I've now forgotten, but can confirm did a great job of easing me into the practise and making me forget I was on a patch of landscaped grass in St Pancras. The music was exactly what you would expect: mantra-like in its repetition, verrrrrrry slow tempos.
At one point Kamellia encouraged us to focus on the space between our eyes, but also to look down at our noses. This created a feeling halfway towards an out-of-body experience, where you're aware of your body but also somehow, like, less aware of it? This is known as: doing yoga. We were then guided out of the meditative portion by some ripping sludge chords.
As promised, the practise was mostly vinyasa-based. A vinyasa is a sequence of three poses: plank (which is like the beginning part of a press-up), chaturanga (the lowering yourself bit of the press up) and cobra / upward facing dog (when you are sunbathing on your tum and someone mentions margaritas). There were also a few warrior poses, AKA you doing "drunk surfing" on the bus home from the students' union, and lots of downward facing dog, which everyone knows because it's the sex one.
Having never done yoga to music before, I found that it helps with two things. Firstly, breathing is a huge part of yoga, and that can fall massively by the wayside when you’re a beginner still trying to learn the poses, hold them and figure out how to transition into the next. Music alleviates that responsibility a bit by providing a background rhythm that you end up syncing up with subconsciously, rather than focusing on trying to get your hamstrings to behave and then emitting a big "HOOOOOSHHH" because you’ve forgotten to exhale for a minute-and-a-half.
"It's the vibration, the toned-down guitars and bass. I don't know what it is, but there’s a certain magic in that heaviness," Kamellia told me afterwards, when I asked her why she thinks doom is such a good fit. "That relief you feel when someone puts their hands on your shoulders – I think [doom] music does the same thing. And I think the psychedelic landscape of doom/stoner/sludge metal naturally lends itself to people indulging in other habits that put them in altered states of consciousness, so I’m doing the same thing with yoga."
I was told that the classes normally take place in dark, cavernous, candlelit rooms where the sound feels more enveloping, acting as a sonic blanket. They also last for an hour-and-a-half, rather than the 30-minute version I did. "It’s a bit like a long gong meditation," Kamellia said. "The whole idea of yoga in general is to go in, so that’s where this practise really helps – it sets up all the conditions to make it very personal and intuitive."
It's perhaps because of this that, during our practise, I sometimes forgot there was music playing at all. Even though it was blasting out of two massive amps a few metres from my face, it became part of the environment, like the wind or the faraway voices of confused passers by. Admittedly, "on the ground by some office buildings" isn’t the ideal environment in which to get your inner healing done, but the fact that I – a socially anxious worm who mostly wears XL T-shirts – felt so immersed that I was able to present my barely-clad arse for all the world to see speaks volumes.
Kamellia Mckayed and Sanna Charles
The first time I ever did yoga was a few years ago, when my friend Chris gave me a one-on-one class after she came back from a course in Spain. She designed an hour-long practise for me that ended in shavasana. At the end, lying on the mat with my arms and legs splayed out like a squashed spider, all open and vulnerable, I burst into tears. I honestly couldn't tell you why. They were tears of relief, for sure, but I have no idea what for.
Kamellia told me similar things have happened in her classes. "I've had a couple of comments from people who have felt it's quite emotive, even if it is quite intense," she said. "If you’re shifting stuff on an emotional level and on an energetic level, you’re already doing way more than any of the postures ever could."
Talking about the class we just did, one person said, "You really tap into some old emotional issues," while someone else who previously took the 90-minute class said it made them remember they’re going to die alone, "and a tear rolled down my cheek".
All of which makes it sound heavier than it is. You might ~feel~ something, because that’s what happens when you introspect for a meaningful period of time, but it’s not just a bunch of goths crying in child’s pose. You also get to lunge while throwing the horns.
On Saturday, the 12th of May, around 10,000 Croatians – including neo-Nazis and Catholic officials – gathered in a field in the southern Austrian town of Bleiburg to commemorate the defeat of the Ustaše army in May of 1945.
This former Nazi-affiliated fascist movement was responsible for murdering hundreds of thousands of Jews, Romas, Serbs and Muslims in World War II, many in the organisation's Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia, which was the only concentration camp run without any German involvement.
At the end of WWII, thousands of Ustaše members were captured and killed by Allied forces in Bleiburg. The annual event mourning that fact is organised by the Croatian Catholic Church, which claims that the gathering is not political, but simply a Mass that aims to "remember the dead".
"We're here to remember our fallen heroes," these two guys told me.
Unsurprisingly, it quickly became obvious on Saturday that this was very much a political event, not just a "commemorative Mass". Despite a ban on clear political symbols, speeches and uniforms, one attendee proudly performed the – illegal – Nazi salute several times straight into my camera, and in the presence of local Austrian police officers. Tomo Bilogrivić, of the United Croatian Right movement, made a speech in defence of fascism, while racist symbols and flags were openly displayed throughout the field. And though I noticed two people being denied entry for wearing T-shirts bearing the Ustaše slogan, "Za Dom Spremni" (For the Homeland), plenty of others, including children, proudly wore theirs throughout the day.
Scroll down to see more photos from Saturday's neo-Nazi rally/commemorative Mass:
A protester sprayed "Death to Fascism" on the road leading to the field.
Many attendees brought their children.
Croatian flags at the rally.
A moment of prayer before the start of the Mass.
The event was organised by the Croatian Catholic church, who claim the annual rally is simply a chance to mourn the dead.
One visitor taking communion.
Some visitors brought homemade floral wreaths to honour the defeated Ustaše army.
A selection of wreaths.
The 10,000-strong crowd at the Loibacher Feld in Bleiburg, in the Austrian region of Carinthia, near the Slovenian border.
A makeshift Catholic chapel was set up at the event.
Despite what's often suggested in hospital-based TV shows, not all medical students use a handy IV drip to get rid of their hangovers. But Harri has definitely thought about it. "It would absolutely work," the medical student told me, "though the problem is you'll need to get an equally wasted colleague to start the IV, which isn't very smart."
The 27-year-old is in his fifth year of medical school in a major German city. Harri asked I keep his real name and location a secret, so he can freely talk about what it's like to tell someone they're going to die, the hardest parts of the job and whether students ever steal drugs from hospitals.
VICE: Are you always respectful when handling corpses? Harri: Generally, we're very respectful. And they don't really allow students to work on the bodies alone – there's always someone around to supervise us, just to make sure that everyone treats them with respect.
There was this one time, though, right before an exam, where we had to slice some skulls in half to remove the brain and examine the neural pathways. Before the test, I practiced on several different heads, since I'd also be tested on working with a range of skulls. So, of course, I took two different halves and put them together for fun. But who wouldn't do that if given the chance?
What do corpses smell like? They smell of their preservation agent, formaldehyde. Normally, the inside of a dead body turns into pure sludge, but the chemical helps keep the organs firm, making it easier for us to work without damaging them. The corpses are preserved for about half the year, but by the end of the semester they start to get mouldy around the abdomen.
Do you and your colleagues practice taking blood on each other? Yes, absolutely. During one of our early classes, I accidentally sliced through my mate's veins. Sometimes, the veins are just too thin and they split, and other times you push right through them.
We actually practice lots of different techniques on each other. For example, we do ear and nose examinations on other students, which are really disgusting because they involve sticking a small set of forceps into the nose before opening them, allowing you to see clearly down the nasal passage. I was also worried that my conservative study partner would find some leftover drugs stuck up my nose. If he ever did, he kept it to himself.
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Do medical students take more illegal drugs than the average person? No. I reckon we experiment less than humanities students. But those who do don't hold back. Maybe it's because we know exactly how drugs work and think we can control it. Or we think that being surrounded by other doctors means someone will look after you if something goes wrong. But it's really a bit idiotic because we should know better.
Do you steal drugs from the hospital? I once stole a bottle of ketamine from the intensive care unit. It doesn't fall under the Narcotics Act in Germany, so it wasn't kept in a safety cabinet. But it's not a very common thing to do – I don't know anyone else that's stolen something, and I've only done it once. I've gotten myself into a bit of trouble from time to time, but if they had caught me then I would have been kicked off the course.
What's the hardest thing about the job you're preparing for? Almost every day, someone dies in intensive care. Many of these patients, however, are anaesthetised and on life support, so they’re not exactly running around the place. That's why their suffering almost feels more abstract than terminal patients in other wards. I find working with oncology patients – the ones who are really near the end and need in-hospital chemotherapy – to be the most emotionally difficult.
Who was the first person you saw die? My first was probably my hardest. I was around 19 years old, working my first nursing internship. We had a patient in her forties who was originally diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She had been ill for a long time and had already undergone multiple surgeries – she knew she was going to die.
She had a tube inserted into her abdomen so we could pump nutritional supplements directly into her stomach. One day, I went into her room and immediately knew that something was wrong. A section of her intestine had split, which meant that its contents were now spilling into her abdomen. Almost as soon as the surgeon arrived, he explained to the patient and her husband that she needed an operation as soon as possible. All three of them knew that she wouldn't survive it, though, because the chemo had completely knocked her – she weighed 35 kilos [about five stone]. Immediately following that conversation, I wheeled her bed into the operating room and had to watch as her husband walked alongside us, and they kissed and said their goodbyes.
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How do you learn to tell someone that they're dying? There are two courses, called "Breaking Bad News" and "Breaking Worse News". In both, we have to role-play different scenarios, working with professional actors pretending to be terminally ill patients. First, we're taught key phrases, before learning specific conversational techniques – verbalising, paraphrasing, active listening. Now, anyone with a bit of common sense and empathy really doesn't need to be taught all of this. But there are so many socially awkward medical students that I'm happy they're forced to take these courses before they're let loose on dying patients.
Do you need high grades to become a decent doctor? No, it doesn't always matter what grades you get. Sure, being smart is a prerequisite, but empathy is just as important, and that can't be tested in an exam. There are plenty of smart students who make bad doctors – people who achieve the highest grades, but have no idea how to actually deal with people. Or the only reason why they became a doctor was that one of their parents was one. You can only hope that those people go into research and never set foot in a hospital room.
Finally, which jobs do you find the disgusting? I've seen some nasty stuff in the emergency room. But outside of that, probably patients who smell badly. I can't hold my nose or make a scene in front of them, but there are some tricks. One is to douse a surgical mask in disinfectant – it almost numbs your mucous membranes, so the only thing you smell is the disinfectant.
Mainstream representations of black men – and in turn, their masculinity – tend to oscillate from one extreme to the other: criminal, hyper-sexual, reviled or idolised. Rarely do they stray beyond these tired tropes. This is what motivated Cam Robert, a New York-based, award-winning creative artist, to launch "Pastel", a photography series aiming to capture the fluid masculinity of black men. While a number of photography projects in recent years have sought to reclaim black masculinity, here we see depicted either the "softer" and "feminine" or "hard" side.
Photographer Myles Loftin's series "Hooded" evokes a sense of playfulness, juxtaposing smiling black teens donning an item of clothing long associated with violence and black fatalities against the backdrop of pastel colours. Meanwhile, Kris Graves' "Testament Project" portrayal of 25 black men might be on their own terms, but the end effect is a hyper-masculine gaze. Conversely, the subjects found in "Pastel" showcase the spectrum that exists within the black community.
"Ultimately, my goal is to help shift the narrative of what black masculinity is because, in reality, there is no defining narrative," Cam tells me. "Society puts us into a box, but the point I want to make is that it's unreasonable and unnatural to expect us all to fit into it."
I spoke to Cam about the power of photography to challenge preconceptions, the limits that society continues to place on black men and why they deserve a new narrative.
VICE: Hi Cam. How did "Pastel" come about? Cam: We've been fortunate to see black men represented in a completely new light, where the softer sides of our identity are being showcased in full. That being said, a lot of the projects I’ve seen about masculinity lean too far into that and don’t consider that masculinity and femininity are part of a spectrum. With "Pastel", I wanted to hone in on the fact that the box black men is often put into is unnatural to begin with. I decided to create these subtly surreal worlds to showcase just how unnatural the box the world tries to put us in is.
Why did you decide to call the project "Pastel"? I wanted to play into this idea of societal expectations. When you hear the word "pastel" you automatically think of something soft and delicate. I want the audience to come in thinking that this is another project showcasing the "softness" of black men, and then have them discover that there is actually more to it. When I also think of pastel colours, I think of colours not at their full vibrancy, almost as if they’re in transition. It’s a perfect metaphor for the current state of black masculinity. It hasn’t been fully realised yet for a lot of us, because we’re limited by what society expects us to be.
For you, what makes "Pastel" significant? "Pastel" is for those who feel that they don’t necessarily fit into a certain criteria, for those who withhold some of their feminine qualities because they think their masculinity is at risk. As trivial as this may sound, this is for the black men who want to sing Beyoncé at the top of their lungs when they’re at the club, but hold it in because they feel their masculinity will be challenged or invalidated. It’s OK! "Single Ladies" is a jam. Let it out. You’re still the same man you were before you sang that song. You don’t have to live in this fantasy world that’s been forced upon us. You can be yourself.
Mainstream media rarely spotlights on how diverse and fluid black masculinity can be. How much has that influenced your work? Given that that’s what I always see whenever I read the news or watch a film, it definitely fed into the creation of "Pastel". It hurts seeing your people constantly subjected to these sorts of things. It takes a toll after a while. We’re not animals – we don’t deserve to be shot down in the streets and locked up for years for petty crimes. In this social media age, it’s being presented at an exponential rate. I know who I am as a black man, I know who my friends are as black men, but I see a completely different narrative within my community. We as a people deserve a new narrative, because the one presented currently is tired and old. With this project, I aim to help redirect that.
Is now the right time to start the discussion on black men and masculinity? If not now, then when? This goes for any POC or marginalised person who feels like a piece of their story is not being heard. In this particular case, I chose black men as my subjects because, as a black man, those are the people I can most accurately speak on from experience. I felt like this was a piece of the conversation that was missing.
Do you take photographs specifically for young black men? I don’t think it’s my primary focus across the board. That being said, I’m very cognisant of the type of images I capture and put out, and make sure that they always align with my morals and uplift my community rather than abuse it.
There’s a sense of intimacy your photos evoke, particularly the image of one of your subjects sleeping in the bath. Is this intentional? Definitely. We’re always made to look intimidating and unapproachable by the media. Capturing this level of intimacy in a photograph combats that notion.
How and why did you select the subjects that you did? All of my subjects are people I’ve had some sort of relationship with beforehand. It was important for me to not just choose random professional models, because in order for a project as intimate as this to truly have impact, there needed to be a level of trust between me and the person I’m shooting.
Is there an image from the series that particularly resonates with you? The photo of my friend Deniro holding his son. I love the juxtaposition of a fully-tatted man holding his newly born son. When I shot that photo, I wanted to create an image that showed what fatherhood looks like, and that we’re blank slates before all of these labels and expectations are projected onto us.
What do you hope people will take away from the images? That people will walk away being more open. Blackness is limitless. We shouldn’t be put into a box. If I can add to the canon helping make the preconception of black men into a positive one, then I’m doing my job right.
What’s next for "Pastel"? It’ll continue to grow. What started off initially as a short-term project has now turned into an ongoing series because of the amount of support it’s received. As inspiration strikes, I’ll be further exploring the spectrum of black masculinity that exists.
Ever wish you could talk to your pet? "Animal communicator" Sue Pike thinks she can do just that, and went on British TV to prove it. During the segment, Pike attempted to act as a medium for a skunk, an armadillo with a wandering eye, and a slow but "wise" sloth. During Monday's Desus & Mero, the VICELAND hosts were unconvinced by her animal antics, though Desus did admit he'd like some clarity about what the hell his cat is thinking.
You can watch the latest episode of DESUS & MERO for free, online, right now. New episodes Monday to Thursday at 11PM on VICELAND.COM.
Along with information on visas and travel advisories, the US State Department’s website has a page featuring three mugshots and a mystery.
The pictures portray one man. In the first, a line is shaved into his hair and a small gold hoop juts out of the left ear. That was in style on June 24, 1997, the date of the photo. Brown eyes stare forward. Taken seven and 16 years later, the other photos show him with a receding hairline and fuller jowls.
"Do you know this individual?" the State Department asks.
The man is described as 5-feet-8, in his early to mid 40s. He is believed to have arrived in South Florida in the late 1990s. He has a Caribbean accent and could be from Antigua, Barbuda or Jamaica. He "would have disappeared from a community around June of 1997," the State Department said. He might go by "Chris" or "Richie."
A marshal asked if he had voted in 2016. He said he had—for Donald Trump.
It reads like a BOLO advisory—"Be On the Lookout"—for a fugitive. But the man is not missing. He was in the custody of US marshals, awaiting sentencing on Tuesday.
For more than two decades, this mystery man, who refuses to disclose his true identity, lived as someone else. He raised a family in suburban Maryland while passing himself off as a soldier, duping state motor vehicle administrations, passport officials and even the same US Attorney's Office now looking to imprison him.
Convicted in mid-November, he faces up to ten years in prison for passport fraud, five years for Social Security fraud, five years each for two counts of voter fraud and a mandatory two-year consecutive sentence for aggravated identity theft.
His attorneys say their client is an immigrant who just wanted to live in the United States. They plan to appeal.
"The offenses for which he was convicted arose from his efforts to live within the confines of our legal society," federal assistant public defenders Laura Abelson and David Walsh-Little said in a statement.
The name he assumed—Cheyenne Moody Davis—was stolen from a US citizen born in the Virgin Islands.
The theft occurred at about the same time the real Davis began a prison term in Antigua for armed robbery and escape.
The incarcerated, it turns out, are easy marks for identity thieves and, as that crime grows—up 16 percent according to an annual study released last year—more prisoner Social Security numbers and names are being stolen for tax fraud and other purposes. With limited or no access to computers, credit checks or social media, prisoners may not discover that their identities have been stolen until after they are released.
Identity protection is widely available to most citizens, but prisoner advocates and identity fraud experts say little is being done to safeguard prisoners. One proposed solution is for prisoners to have the ability to freeze their credit when they begin their sentences. Without such protections, it's unlikely many prisoners are even thinking that they could become victims of identity theft.
"With a lot of prisoners I suspect that it's more about how we get through the day," said Adam K. Levin, former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs and a founder of identity protection and consumer advocacy companies CyberScout and Credit.com. "It's not like you would expect a lot of people who are in prison to be checking their credit reports."
More than 24,000 fraudulent tax returns were filed in 2015 using prisoner Social Security numbers, according to the most recent statistics available from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The refunds sought on the returns added up to more than $1.3 billion, an increase of $300 million since 2012. And those numbers are incomplete. As of May, the IRS was still investigating more than 32,000 more fraudulent returns filed by prisoners in 2015.
Prisoners perpetrate some of this fraud, selling their personal information to identity theft rings on the outside for a share of the spoils, but recent cases also show that inmates often don't know their identities were stolen.
In January, a Crown Point, Indiana, man was sentenced to 61 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $550,000 after prosecutors say he filed false tax returns using the identities of inmates without their knowledge.
In February, a Woodbury, Tennessee, former inmate was sentenced to 57 months for stealing the identities of fellow inmates and dead relatives to file false income tax returns. He received $56,000 in illegal refund checks that he deposited with forged signatures after his parole.
In March, a Newport News, Virginia, woman was sentenced to 54 months in prison after she was convicted of doctoring income tax filings for others from 2013 to 2016. Federal prosecutors said she conjured up imaginary dependents for clients using the identities of prisoners incarcerated with her husband.
Identity thieves typically favor the credentials of children and dead people because there is less risk of being detected, said Eva Velasquez, president of the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center. Prisoners present the same opportunity.
"Here’s someone who's going to be off the map for five or seven years," Velasquez said.
It took nine years—1997 to 2006—before federal authorities detected that Cheyenne Davis had become a victim of identity theft. If it wasn’t for a routine visit to the US consulate that Davis was given during his prison stint in Antigua it might have gone undetected longer. Looking up Davis's file, consulate officials noticed that a passport had been issued in his name, triggering a years-long investigation that targeted a thief who didn't run or hide but stubbornly stuck to his story.
The thief's refusal to give up his alias sets his case apart, and has consumed countless man-hours of government effort.
The first time the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service confronted the man they call John Doe in 2013, he told the agents he had served in the military from 2005 to 2008 and had recently been discharged from the US Army Reserves.
When agents asked for proof, he said he had lost his Department of Defense ID card.
When they asked where he had obtained his GED, he couldn’t remember.
When they asked him to identify an older man in a photo they showed him, he didn't know that it was the real Davis's father.
But the man maintained he could still prove who he was. He promised to get back to the agents.
When the federal agents eventually came back in December of 2015, he told them his military yearbooks and documents had been destroyed. The agents had checked into his claims that he had been a military police officer with the 200th Military Police Command at Fort Meade and found no trace of him in the Army, at all.
Did you serve in the military? the agents asked.
He refused to answer.
Just how deep the lies went became apparent on February 8, 2017, when federal agents arrived at a complex of squat brown and black apartment blocks in Columbia, Maryland, with a search warrant.
An Army sticker affixed to the door greeted agents when they walked up to Apartment 301. Inside, they found handcuffs, 16 assorted technical knives and pepper spray. A blue Anne Arundel County police patch lay on the bedroom floor, a blue police response light sat in a black bag under a table in the living room and 9mm ammunition was stocked in a hall closet. Several military uniforms were found, including shirts labeled "military police."
Agents also found tax forms and pay stubs under various names.
Who are you? investigators asked, placing him under arrest.
"Cheyenne Davis," the man insisted.
He cloaked himself in patriotism, wearing Army gear, and plastered a "Wounded Warrior" sticker on the trunk of his 2006 silver Mitsubishi Eclipse.
As marshals drove him to the US District Courthouse in Baltimore that morning, he began excoriating President Trump's aggressive deportation of undocumented immigrants. A marshal asked if he had voted in 2016. He said he had—for Donald Trump.
Before they could establish the fraud, Diplomatic Security Service agents first had to prove that the imprisoned Cheyenne Moody Davis was the real Cheyenne Moody Davis. They interviewed Davis at Her Majesty’s Prison in Antigua and found him credible. They flew to St. Thomas and showed his mother a photo array that included the imposter and her son. They showed the same array to Davis’s father in Lauderhill, Florida. Both parents identified the incarcerated Davis as their son.
At each step, authorities confronted the mystery man with stronger evidence, hoping he would give up the long con. He insisted he was just a normal working man raising a family in Maryland.
"What is undisputed in this case is that our client has lived in the continental United States since 1997, with no criminal record and a consistent history of working and paying taxes," his lawyers said.
Upon the stolen name, Davis's impersonator had constructed an identity that was partly fact and partly fiction. He got married, worked at Walmart and Weis supermarkets and rose to the position of assistant manager. He was sued for divorce proceedings in 2010, but the case was dismissed on a technicality. (They remain married.) He sued another woman for custody of a child in 2014.
The man he was existed alongside the man he apparently wanted to be. He cloaked himself in patriotism, wearing Army gear, and plastered a "Wounded Warrior" sticker on the trunk of his 2006 silver Mitsubishi Eclipse.
He posted a selfie on Facebook wearing an Army cap with three chevrons—the rank of sergeant—and a fleece jacket with name plates that said "DAVIS" and "US ARMY." His 80-some online friends included medical professionals, fitness trainers and secretaries. They awarded him "likes" for photos that showed him as a loving husband or boyfriend, and for images that made him out to be a veteran. "Glad to be your friend," one wrote.
Over the years, a range of county, state and federal agencies had been taken in, issuing driver’s licenses and a Social Security card, registering him to vote and even calling him as a witness in federal court.
It was, naturally, a fraud case. In November 2016, he raised his hand and was sworn in as Cheyenne Moody Davis, witness for the prosecution. Working as a grocery store manager, he had called the police on a customer whose credit cards kept getting declined. When the prosecution asked him if the customer had wronged the store by trying to commit fraud, he responded: "Yes." Prosecutors won a conviction. Three months later, the mystery man was himself arrested.
His success as a prosecution witness was not the only time the imposter had demonstrated his comfort with the legal system. Arrested three times for alleged crimes that included domestic assault, he successfully requested an expungement of all the charges from his criminal record when none resulted in convictions.
His luck seemed to run out in the US district courtroom of Judge A. David Copperthite. When the imposter’s public defender argued that his client should be released with an electronic bracelet to the custody of his wife, the judge was unpersuaded. If the defendant failed to show up in court, the judge said, he wouldn't know how to write up a bench warrant.
"I do not even know what name I would use," the judge said.
A version of this article was originally published by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the US criminal justice system. Sign up for the newsletter, or follow the Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter.
On Monday, Spike Lee wowed audiences at Cannes with a first look at BlacKkKlansman, his new film telling the riveting true story of a black cop who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan in the 70s. But what really made waves at the screening was the impromptu speech Lee gave afterward—calling Donald Trump a "motherfucker" in a searing indictment of the alt-right, white nationalism, and intolerance, Vulture reports.
BlacKkKlansman, produced by Jordan Peele, is slated to hit theaters on the one year anniversary of the Charlottesville protests that led to the death of activist Heather Heyer. Lee ends his film with footage of the deadly car attack that took her life, a montage that reportedly left the Cannes audience in tears. When a theatergoer asked about the scene, Vulture reports, Lee went off on an anti-Trump tirade—denouncing the president's response to Charlottesville in a five-minute speech that left the director "shaken."
"We have a guy in the White House—I’m not gonna say his fucking name—who defined that moment not just for Americans but the world, and that motherfucker was given the chance to say we are about love, not hate," Lee said. "And that motherfucker did not denounce the motherfucking Klan, the alt-right, and those Nazi motherfuckers. It was a defining moment, and he could have said to the world, not just the United States, that we were better than that."
Lee slammed Trump's comments about the "violence on many sides" in Charlottesville, going on to make clear that his speech—and, ultimately, BlacKkKlansman itself—is a call to action.
"We have to wake up. We can’t be silent. It’s not a black, white, or brown [problem], it’s everybody," Lee said. "So this film, to me, is a wake-up call… stuff is happening, and it’s topsy-turvy, and the fake has been trumpeted as the truth. That’s what this film is about. I know my heart, I don’t care what the critics say or anybody else, but we are on the right side of history with this film."
According to the Hollywood Reporter, even before Lee gave his speech, BlacKkKlansman earned a ten-minute standing ovation at Cannes—a sign that the new film really is as good as it looks.
He wasn’t like... throwing me out or anything. The large blue dumpster stood outside of our building in Stuyvesant Town and it was mostly loaded with discarded furniture. He thought it would be funny for him and my older sister. I remember standing there—you know, in a dumpster—as they pretended to walk away whilst giggling, thinking to myself in my 10-year-old brain, “I cannot believe this is my life.”
It was harmless and silly, two characteristics my dad embodied whenever he was at his best. He was a man made up of random superstitions and axioms. He was the most unpredictable person I had ever known.
He was the scariest looking dude you could imagine—over six feet tall, about 230 pounds, and the owner of a blue teardrop tattoo—and immensely intimidating. He had a six-inch scar spreading across the right side of his face (from a time a man attempt to slit his throat, separate from the time a man cut off part of his thumb in Cambridge, Massachusetts). He was always getting into fights. Sidewalks, movie theaters, train stations—if he was standing somewhere, unnecessary bloodshed was always on the table.
If you spent enough time with him, however, you’d also learned that he was quite sensitive. This was the man who when asked by a lawyer in 2015 “How many times have you been arrested?” responded with “I’m not sure,” but who called me in 2013, sobbing, asking me if I really wasn’t going to invite him to my college graduation.
I thought I had my dad figured out. I thought I had our relationship figured out. But when my estranged dad died three months ago, I quickly realized I had nothing figured out. I wasn’t prepared for my father’s death and all the sadness it would bring me.
Our relationship crumbled around the time I turned 19. There was always a naive part of me that hoped it would work itself out, though. Now that he’s dead, I know that’s never going to happen, and I now have to be a participant in a new and strange world where I miss the person who ultimately brought the most anxiety and sadness into my life.
My dad lived many lives. He trained as a boxer in his early 20s. He worked as a cab driver. He was a devoted and adept lieutenant of the Fire Department of New York. As a young fireman, he enjoyed beer, cocaine, and marching in the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in Manhattan. In his young adulthood, he was good looking, but did not seem to think much of himself. He lived as a son, a best friend, and later a father.
Growing up, this was the kind of man I knew. He bought Yankee tickets for the man who lived outside of McDonalds on First Avenue. He loved breakfast food. He threw his kids the best birthday parties. When I was a kid, he’d look me in the eye with the seriousness of a craniotomy, and exclaim, “I’D ROB A BANK FOR YOU.” And I always knew that he meant it.
He loved a good headbutt, which most people can agree is entirely fucking counterproductive and ridiculous. He never took the first issue of the New York Post when purchasing the newspaper at local corner stores. Same with Canada Dry ginger ales and boxes of Lorna Doones. Never the first. As kids, he informed my siblings and me that we were not to leave any hat on any bed, as the combination meant “someone was about to die.” He never explained how he reached this scientific conclusion. To this day, as a 26-year-old woman, if I walk into my apartment and see a hat on any bed, I yell “DO WE WANT SOMEONE TO DIE?” You know, as rational people do.
As a kid, he always intimidated me. I was his middle child, and he always treated me like I was a cadet in the John Tamola military school. I couldn’t wear nail polish, I couldn’t watch MTV, I was not allowed on St. Mark’s place, and that man put the fear of god into me so as to ensure that I would NEVER say a single curse word.
I knew my father abused drugs. I watched that man abuse drugs since I was five. I had memorized the shape and texture of the turquoise tiles of our old bathroom floor. I picked my unconscious father off of that tiled floor more than once. The weirdest part of his addiction was that he always managed to convince me that I was either misreading the situation or being too hard on him.
I didn’t have much time to pay attention to his addiction. My brother and I were sharing a room in a small apartment with my grandmother who had Alzheimer’s. I was in high school trying to pass statewide tests and find a boyfriend. Senior year of high school arrived, my parents separated, my grandma died, and I got ready to leave for college.
He used to call me all the time when I was in college. No longer living with my mom and brother, his world seemed shakier. The man who taught me how to pray was suddenly asking me if I believed in God. Other times he’d call me just to tell me he was depressed or that he was thinking or writing about death.
During every conversation, he was irrational and paranoid. He would tell me things that didn’t make sense. Seeing his name on my phone made me anxious. I was his kid and he was my dad but he was always, always the one looking to me for comfort. I could never make him feel better.
All throughout college, I tried to have patience. I felt bad for not having more patience. I’d tell myself over and over again—I only get one dad. My dad is alive and I only get one. I should be grateful for all that he is.
Right before the start of my senior year, we had one last stressful interaction that just threw me over the edge. He owed my mom money for my brother’s tuition, which I had been enlisted to collect. He told me he’d only give me the money if I used my phone to text people who supposedly owed him money. I begged him not to make me do it. I did it anyway. Whomever he made me text replied about 20 minutes later, urging me to tell my friend John to stop bothering them.
This was my breaking point, I guess. This wasn’t my friend—this was my father. Therapists, friends, and family members urged me to “take a break.” So I took the break. And it was essentially the end of our relationship.
My dad would still call me on holidays and my birthday. Our brief exchanges all had the same message: he was my father and I owed him a phone call. This was our cycle for years. I saw him three times in the past six years: first at my grandmother’s wake, second at my grandfather’s birthday, and third when he requested I drive him to my grandpa’s house in his ex-wife’s car.
I found out that my father had cancer on Christmas in 2016. I was at my then-boyfriends house, entranced in a world of familial normalcy and sugar cookies in rural Massachusetts. My sister called me and told me my dad was sick and that the doctors told him that he had about a year.
I called him when I got home and asked him if he wanted to get coffee with me. He said no.
When I found out my dad was sick, each day after that was a day when I was trying to get myself to snap out of my own apathy. I’d shoot him a text or try to call him, but I ultimately distracted myself with work and other people. I wanted to be a good daughter—I wanted to be a selfless daughter who dropped everything and ran to be by her father’s side.
That day never came. He was still the man I was terrified of. He was still the man who I was literally and figuratively running from.
I just kept throwing myself into my job. His responses to my texts were infrequent and cryptic, often telling me to save my prayers and well-wishes for sick children. He didn’t seem like a man who was dying. He also refused to give any specifics about his diagnosis—only telling me that he “knew where he was going” and that he had “made peace with it.”
Three months ago, I was at the Westminster dog show with my siblings, petting poodles and thriving. The next day, I was on the phone with one of his best friends who would say what I had been thinking later that day: “I didn’t know it was this bad.” My dad’s best friend didn’t know my dad was that sick. Neither did I.
His best friend called me that Sunday and I ran to the hospital. And there was my dad. The man in the hospital bed wasn’t the man I was terrified of.
He was entirely confused. Although he had liver cancer, he hadn’t been doing horribly the past couple of months. The reason he got so sick so quickly was because he had hip surgery and never attended follow-up appointments. He got an infection, his friends were called, I was called, and it was clear that the whole death thing was... actually going to happen.
He wouldn’t drink any ginger ale, he wouldn’t eat anything, and he would mostly come in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he’d yell out, yell from what sounded like the bottom of his soul. Just elongated groans. He seemed like he was in a world of physical and emotional pain.
This was Sunday. This would be his last Sunday. It was the last day I heard him produce any words.
It was obvious that it was bad. I knew I needed to hold his hand and tell him that I was sorry and that I loved him. So I did. And he said the exact same thing back to me and we cried together. And it was one of the most powerful moments of my life—and I hope each day that he heard me and that he knows that I truly meant every syllable of what I said.
Then he died. And death isn’t one of those things you just kinda do. When you die, you die all the way. You are gone and you are gone forever. It is the most annoyingly final thing in the entire world. I’m not going to run into him, he’s not going to ask me to buy him a box of cookies, and if I do something crazy like have my own children one day, he will never get to meet them. There’s so much he doesn’t get to do now. There’s so much we do not get to share. It’s annoying. It’s entirely fucking annoying.
One of the worst parts is the constant remembering. I have to bring my brain to a place where I remember my dad is dead and that we will never, ever mend our horrifically fragmented relationship.
In a perfect world, I would have gotten my shit together and I would have sucked it up and been there for him more through his cancer. That didn’t happen and there is truly nothing I can do about it now.
I’m more like my dad than I’ve ever cared to admit. He was super intense. He genuinely cared about whoever seemed like the most vulnerable populations—the sick, the elderly, kids. When it was your birthday, he bought you a cake. My dad did not half-ass anything, and he especially did not half-ass love. I want to believe that I too am these things.
Instead of being afraid of him, his unpredictability, and affinity for punching people in the face, I’m now sitting on my bed at the end of the day and I’m saying prayers to this man. I’m begging him to look out for the people I care about and to help me get my life together. I almost feel like I can rely on him now in a way that I couldn’t before.
My dad called me “Little Girl” more than he called me by my actual name. For better or for worse, I’ll always be his daughter. I’ll always be the girl in the dumpster, hoping my existence is bringing him some semblance of joy.
Long before they took their seats, moviegoers at Cannes knew Lars von Trier's new film, The House That Jack Built, was going to be brutal. The festival's artistic director, Thierry Fremaux, had already decided the movie about a ruthless serial killer was “so controversial" he had to make it ineligible for prizes, forcing von Trier to play it out of competition.
Still, apparently some people at The House That Jack Built's Monday night screening weren't prepared for just how gruesome it would be. According to Variety, more than 100 people were so shocked by the violence, they left their seats and stormed out of the theater.
The House That Jack Built stars Matt Dillon as a philosophically minded psychopath who carries out five random acts of bloodshed. The film shows him mutilating his victims in gory detail: At one point, the killer slices off one of his victim's breasts. Later, he shoots two children in the head—a scene that reportedly prompted the first wave of walkouts.
Most critics who managed to endure the whole thing panned the movie, complaining that—at over two and a half hours—the film was too bloody, too brutal, and too long. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it “an ordeal of gruesomeness,” while the Telegraph’s Robbie Collins described it as “two and half hours of self-reflexive torture porn." But at least a few people walked away from The House That Jack Built impressed.
All told, maybe the folks who wound up walking out of The House That Jack Built should have heeded Fremaux's warning, and just steered clear of the thing. Catching Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman probably would've made for a better time.
When you don't subscribe to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime, it's easy to feel left out. Everyone else is at home watching some standup comedy special while you're trying to find the best videos to watch on YouTube. But amid all the side-eyeing on social media and keeping up with the Joneses, it's easy to forget there's a wealth of free movie resources that do indeed exist—you just need to know where to find them. To save you the trouble, and the roll-of-the-dice that comes with simply typing "free movies" into your search bar, we've dug our feelers deep into the 'net and uncovered a list of the best movies you can stream right now in the USA, completely free:
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
You don't have to sign up to watch free movies in full on the streaming service Tubi TV, which is great for anything from G to PG-13-rated films (R-rated movies require a signup, but thankfully there's still no credit card information required). With news of a third Bill and Ted movie breaking now, there's never been a better time to revisit the 1989 proto-stoner comedy, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, or its sequel, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, both on Tubi TV. It's also worth the free registration to check out classic R-rated films like Showgirls and Glengarry Glen Ross.
The entire United Kingdom was up in arms over this sadistic, madly funny 1979 horror film about an artist who gets fed up and starts killing New Yorkers with a power drill. Abel Ferrara is easily one of the best and most underrated American filmmakers (Pasolini, anyone?) and this punk-grindhouse classic, now in the public domain, is where he made his first indelible impact.
I Am Not Your Negro
Did you know that if you have a library card, you probably have access to a library of over 30,000 amazing movies, 100% commercial-free? Yep, that's the beauty of Kanopy: Not only can you stream all of Lars von Trier's #rare ghost hospital mini-series, The Kingdom, you also have a reason to finally make that trip to the library that you've been putting off for years now. Our current pick for Kanopy is Raoul Peck's Oscar-nominated 2016 documentary based on the work of James Baldwin, but this streaming service has thousands of other masterworks to choose from. Eat your heart out, Netflix!
Ida
If you're OK with the occasional ad, you won't have a problem finding something to watch on Popcornflix. Now available on the free streaming provider is Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski's recent masterpiece—the New Yorker's words, not just mine—an old-school, black-and-white drama that harks back to the days where cinematography was slow, stunning, and still framed in 4:3. File this one alongside postwar essentials including Hiroshima Mon Amour and The Night Porter.
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages
The crowning achievement of the silent film era is a three-hour epic that rails against racism and smashes the hypocrisies of prejudice—and it's from 19-freaking-16. The legendary D. W. Griffith was the man behind this movie camera, and it's shrouded in as much mystery as it seeks to uncover, but it's a must for anyone with even a passing interest in film—and human—history.
Night of the Living Dead
Another film that landed in the public domain due to human error is George A. Romero's classic indie horror film, Night of the Living Dead. This 1968 movie is one of the first to link zombies and critiques of consumerism, making it the prototype for zombie movies that came after. While it's neither as fast nor as grisly as, say, 2004's Dawn of the Dead, it's important to remember your roots—especially when you're trying to re-bury the dead.
Paprika
In 46 short years, the late Satoshi Kon wrote and directed four films that consistently make it onto lists of the best anime movies ever: Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprika. Each is a masterpiece in its own right, but the latter, his final feature film before his death in 2010, is perhaps the best entrée into his mind-bending body of work. It's a sci-fi opus about a scientist who moonlights as a detective in people's dreams, and it's brimming full of subconscious-stimulating scenes you'll never forget. Watch it for free now with ads (unfortunately), on Crackle, Sony's streaming service. (For real anime heads, Fist of the North Star is also available.)
Selections from the National Film Registry
Each year, 25 films that are deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant are selected for preservation by the United States National Film Preservation Board and added to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. While many of the films in the NFR have yet to become available for free streaming—here's looking at you, Casablanca—American classics like The Hitch-Hiker (1953) and The Bargain (1914) are available to watch now on the LoC playlist, "Selections from the National Film Registry."
Space Is the Place
It's not totally clear how the films that populate the avant-garde art repository UbuWeb remain available and online for free, but we're not complaining. The legendary jazz musician Sun Ra is the star of this 70s Afrofuturist sci-fi, which features better style than the last few decades of Met Galas. Watch it now.
Taxi Driver
An unforgettable script by Paul Schrader underlines Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese's most-quotable collaboration about an insomniac Vietnam veteran who sets off on a vigilante mission to scour the scum out of New York City. You might have to watch it with commercials, but all it takes is a Facebook to watch it on Vudu's collection of free, feature-length movies.
Diablo Cody has a thing for bicycles. In her 2008 smash hit, Juno, the closing scene sees our teenage heroine (Ellen Page) merrily pedal up to her boyfriend (Michael Cera) but a few shots after giving their newborn up for adoption. “I know people are supposed to fall in love before they reproduce,” muses Page’s droll voiceover, “but I guess normalcy just isn’t our style.” Cue endearing Moldy Peaches tune and summertime guitar strumming.
In Tully, Cody’s third and latest collaboration with director Jason Reitman, the bike motif takes on action-flick bravura as Charlize Theron’s Marlo steals a three-speed from the streets of Bushwick and furiously rides toward her old apartment. “I’m not safe, I’m scared!” she tells her pedantic night nanny, Tully (Mackenzie Davis), who has claimed that, despite the snarls of Marlo’s domestic life, she has “actually made [her] biggest dream come true.” In both movies, the bike becomes a mode of mobility for women erstwhile trapped by the demands of motherhood. But while Juno was lauded for its lead’s feisty take on unplanned pregnancy, Tully’s depiction of postpartum psychosis has been censured by mothers and mental-health providers alike. “I can see why there’s a lot of anger out there,” Postpartum Support International president Ann Smith told the New York Times, “and I think they have a right to it.”
Cody herself would seem to agree. “[T]he film is meant to be uncomfortable,” she explained in response, adding that she “absolutely did not” consult medical experts when writing, basing the script’s premise instead on her own research and experience of mothering. For anyone who’s followed the screenwriter’s career, this comes as no surprise. Dubbed by Reitman the “semi-autobiographical” follow-up to Juno and 2011’s Young Adult, Tully reads as the final act in a trilogy doggedly plumbing the depths of how motherhood—and its absence—can both define and limit female identity. But when Juno glossed over the trauma of gestating a child and giving it away, barely anyone batted an eye. Nor was there particular uproar when the boozy protagonist of Young Adult (also played by Theron) didn’t wind up in a 12-step program. So why, when exploring the mental unraveling of a 40-something mom, is it the responsibility of the film to overtly diagnose and deliver treatment?
“I see such a missed opportunity,” says Motherly author Diana Spalding. “Had the movie been just a bit longer, perhaps they could have shown Marlo receiving help—how amazing would it have been to see Hollywood take on the stigma of maternal mental health and turn it on its head? Instead, we leave with the notion that this is just 'how it is' for moms.”
How it is? Just as it’s doubtful that distressed moms are so delicate as to be invariably triggered by the film, it seems unlikely that any viewer would assume that a plunge into a river and meet-n-greet with an actual mermaid savior—both plot points in Tully—are part and parcel of parenthood. Moreover, the film does turn the mental-health stigma “on its head”—by presenting its neurologically atypical female lead as clever, dynamic, and bracingly real. Behold: Marlo running through the woods a few months after giving birth to her third child, intent on outpacing a colt-like millennial. To some this scene may seem to expose the “ugly” of motherhood; it is, rather, the triumph. When her running rival is clearly disturbed by her leaking boobs, no apologetic tone accompanies Marlo’s “I make milk.” It’s life, and she’s gonna keep on running.
Aside one brief quip from her curious elder daughter, there is also no apology for Marlo’s beleaguered body, and at times the film insists that, even when feeling like an “abandoned trash barge,” this mom still has it going on. Observe Charlize picking off the chocolate chips from a lonely muffin, nine months in, and running into her striking lady-ex from back-in-the-day Brooklyn. ”You have my number,” she says to Marlo, who is too weary to consider the encounter for the flirtation it clearly is.
More recently in the Times, Ylonda Gault accused Tully of “almost mocking postpartum depression.” Maybe the moments of magic realism went too far for some, but I saw the film more as a Where the Wild Things Are for the postpartum set: Instead of furry goblins, we get a lissome night nurse who suddenly grows fins. And while many critics refuse to see it, the movie doesn’t pass over the tenderer moments of momming: Legos between Marlo and her differently abled son, bedtime games of “Lighter/Darker,” her daughter shampooing Marlo’s hair while they discuss Monsters, Inc. These scenes may not be the focus of the plot, but consistently chill off the “maternal crucible” when things start to boil over.
Gault further claims Tully is of a piece with the conception of motherhood—especially among “white, well–off women”—as backbreaking “work,” rather than a redemptive transformation: “Basically it’s a bunch of privileged women shouting: 'Look! I’m doing a whole lot here. See me suffering?'”
She’s right. Black women usually don’t get that opportunity, just as they usually don’t get the opportunity to even be depressed, as Margo Jefferson has so brilliantly argued. “Because our people had endured horrors and prevailed, even triumphed, their descendants should be too strong and too proud for such behaviour,” she explains about her mental health struggles. “We were not to be depressed… we were not to have nervous collapses.”
But that didn’t make Jefferson’s depression any less crippling; if anything, the ethos of resilience could become a burden of its own. While Gault makes the great point that “pop culture [has busily played] up the fragility of white women,” she seems to suggest that her blackness itself has protected her from the worst of postpartum woes—ironic given postpartum depression and psychosis are actually more common in women of colour; they just happen to be grossly under-diagnosed.
Ultimately, Tully may be so controversial specifically because motherhood is such a lightning rod in terms of race, class, and, well, everything else. But just as we don’t expect the Bourne franchise to dole out wisdom on the perils of PTSD, why would we want Tully to end at the pharmacy counter? A film, above all, is meant to empathize, not pathologize, and Cody—for whom “normalcy” has never been in style—thankfully seems to know that.
The cherubic face of Argentine serial killer Carlos Robledo Puch earned him the nickname "El Ángel Negro," the Black Angel, at the height of his career in the 1970s when he killed 11 people, raped two women, and assaulted several others. As portrayed by newcomer Lorenzo Ferro in Luis Ortega's irresistible El Ángel, which recently premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, he's equal parts charming and terrifying. Crime, at once, is sexy and stupid, and Ortega basks in the thrill of it without attempting to explain the psychology.
Considering Ortega spent his formative years attempting to be a crook himself, it makes sense that he found freedom in Puch's true story, and in making it larger than life. VICE sat down with Ortega at Cannes to discuss his own criminal childhood, casting non-actors, and his love for Harmony Korine’s purposefully risky films.
VICE: How did you decide to make this film? Luis Ortega: It’s in the tradition of films like Badlands, or Bonnie and Clyde, and even Gummo by Harmony Korine.
But... When I was a child, I really wanted to be an outlaw.
Oh yeah? Yeah. They were people I admired, and I tried really hard for a couple years, then I just realized I didn’t have the talent to be a thief.
Interesting! So, that didn’t work, and you don’t have many other options for freedom. Like, either you’re a delinquent, or you do films—you do your own stuff. And the only way I could feel free when I was a kid, was doing shit that I was not supposed to do! All that vitality inside, you don’t know where to place it cause you have to behave...
And you find that film is a way to release that energy? Yeah, it’s the only way for me to be me and to not let all the corruption get inside me. To not act for anybody else but just for what I love and feel. One of the characters [in El Ángel] says, “The world belongs to the thieves and the artists, everybody else has to work!” And I always thought that was true! I didn’t have the talent to be a good thief, so filmmaking just came naturally, you know? My education is film, that’s what made me behave the way I behave. So I guess it came from my childhood. My friend, when I was a kid, his mother used to take us to steal houses and break into places.
Really?! Yeah. And she had a really sensual relationship with us. I was nine or ten or 11, and we used to break into places and steal things, and she would wait in the car and we would take off. I lived for a couple years in Miami, and she would take us to these huge mansions with all these glass windows, and we would break the windows or just slide them open.
Photo: Marcos Ludevid
So the film is a bit autobiographical then, right? Yeah… It’s…
—It’s also still about a real person that exists, Carlos Robledo Puch, right? Well… It’s much easier to tell your producers, “I wanna do a film based on this,” and do whatever film you were gonna do anyway, than to tell them, “Look, I have this idea…” and have them go “OK, it’s too complicated…” If you have something really specific, you just put your ideas inside!
So did you take a lot of liberties with the truth? Oh yeah. It’s not a biopic!
OK, because Carlitos is still a very interesting character. I like how you don’t really try and explain why he does anything. Yeah, because we have a right to not be comprehended, and film is always violating that right. You have to fucking have your own world and be mysterious! Cause you don’t really know what your life is about anyway, so why would I try to explain it? But in a way, the actor [Lorenzo Ferro] knew why he was doing what he was doing.
Did you have conversations with him, like, “In this scene, you’re doing this because of that but we don’t see it?" Yeah. He had never acted in his life. I really wanted someone who had never acted, who was a virgin in every way, who hadn’t been screwed by life yet and been disappointed. I wanted someone that had never been on the screen before, someone really pure. So the hard work was, during the six months before shooting, he would come to my house, and we would smoke pot and just dance. We were like, “OK, now let’s move like a girl and be OK with that.” So I prepared him to be this character, but I don’t know if I did a good job to make him an actor! I think he’s definitely talented, but he internalized the logic of the character so much that I don’t know how his life is gonna go on!
You’ve created a monster! Yeah—a beautiful one!
Photo: Marcos Ludevid
So how did you cast Lorenzo Ferro? I would ride the subway and walk up to little kids, but that didn’t look so good. I would be like, “Have you ever acted?” and they would run away. So I stopped that, and we just started calling in everybody we knew. And every time an actor would come, it wouldn’t work. So we saw a thousand kids, and this kid Lorenzo was the first one! I saw him, and I said, “It’s him!” But the producers said, “But he can’t act, he’s never done anything...” He didn’t look like he looks now—he was very shy, and couldn’t look me in the eye! He didn’t want to impress me. He was just being cool and doing his own shit, and I thought that was really attractive. I really insisted that it was him, and that was the closest thing to giving birth, for me.
The way you depict the homoeroticism between the Carlitos and his friend Ramón is interesting because it’s really tender and positive. You can make love without penetration or anything like that, and I’m not too big a fan of sex scenes in films. I love Cassavetes, and he goes so wild and so deep inside, but, you know, you don’t want to see him having sex or taking a shit or jacking off. That’s private. You can show it, but you really need to have a good reason for it. I thought of the act of just being in love with your friend, which happens a lot when you’re a kid because you admire the one who’s wilder or tougher than you. I just wanted to maintain it pure. And there's so much pornography around, especially with women, I wanted to try and balance it out a little.
That’s why I really like it when Carlitos first sees Ramón and the first thing he does is provoke him. That feels so real! Yeah, cause, you know, this character is based on this friend of mine and his mother. We met like that, in a fight, in school. His mother told him he should take me home, and we started living all these crazy experiences. We slept over a million dollars because this family was in some kind of... confusing business. The mother had a million dollars under her waterbed, and we would all sleep together…
Of course it was a waterbed! Yeah! That was risky for the money, now that I think about it. But yeah, we would sleep together. We wouldn’t have sex; we would just have this relationship that seemed normal at the time, and later I realized that it wasn’t that normal…
You make crime look really cool, but also really crazy. Did you think that you had to strike a balance between the two? No, the thing is, Carlitos doesn’t believe in death. He sees everything as so staged—people are saying their lines, everything is so fake—that he starts doubting nature itself. He thinks that if he shoots you, you’re not gonna die. Everything’s a lie; it’s a joke! When I was a kid, I thought I could jump out the window, and nothing would happen. Death doesn’t seem real until you get older. So I didn’t really think of it as a violent film or a crime film, but rather as about this kid who thinks he’s in a movie, who feels like a movie star. He feels like God is watching him so he should do a good performance for Him.
Visually, the film is wild too. Did you have a specific idea for the visual style? Was it that same idea of freedom? It’s just that things happen when I’m writing, I just see the characters do things. For example, when Carlitos’s partner Ramón is naked on the bed, I was like, “OK, he’s in love with his partner, he stands up in front of him… he should give him a blowjob.” That’s the logical next step. But then I thought, What would be more beautiful than that, and more pure? Maybe he could cover his dick with all the jewelry they stole, and just appreciate it! He has another way of thinking, he doesn’t want to gain, he wants to…
He wants to experience. Experience being alive, just the poetry of it!
That’s why the film is always taking us by surprise. As you say, it’s not about a logical succession of things, it’s just whatever Carlitos and Ramón wanna do. Yeah, that’s why I think I was referring to Harmony Korine. He takes the risk of seeming ridiculous. Those are the only films worth watching for me.
The film also really comes alive with the music, is it from the time and from Buenos Aires? I went from 1972, and the main score for the film is by this guy called Moondog, the Viking of 6th Avenue. He was this blind drifter in New York. One of the good things about the internet is that you can find all these people! I can’t listen to music with words that much anymore, they bother me. So I found this instrumental music from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s by Moondog, and then I put a lot of rock songs from Argentina. And my dad is a singer, so I put some of his songs too!
You mentioned Harmony Korine, but were you also inspired by the more conventional films like Scarface? Your style is a bit de Palma or Scorsese at times. Yes, I guess it is! I’ve been doing films with like $5,000, $10,000, and I’ve always worked with people from the street. This is my first film with a proper production, so I had the chance to go a bit further. And I also knew that it had to be appealing visually, you would want to be in the scene. So we worked with the colors and the idea of feeling cool when you’re young. You wanna be there on that bike…
That bike is so cool! It shouldn’t be so cool! It shouldn’t, right? And well, they’re also really good looking, so…
OK, I’m as pissed off as you are about this, but trust me—listen to the video in the tweet below.
After a co-worker sent this to me in Slack, I heard “Yanny.” No doubt about it. I played it dozens of times in row: “Yanny. Yanny. Yanny,” said a mechanical voice into my headphones over and over. I figured I was being trolled, and went about my business.
But after working for a few minutes, I returned to the video, and gave it another idle click.
“Laurel,” said the voice into the ether. “Laurel.”
Yes, it turns out there is actually something strange going on in this audio clip. According to hundreds of replies to the tweet and a Reddit thread, some people hear “Laurel,” some hear “Yanny,” and some, like me, hear “Yanny” before hearing “Laurel.” (No one appears to go from Laurel to Yanny.)
There are a flurry of theories about why people are hearing this thing differently, some involving sound frequencies and shit like that. You might also be hearing the sound of web editors worldwide rushing to post articles about the tweet, hoping it leads to a traffic bonanza on par with “the Dress.”
This guy breaks down one explanation in the video below, but I don’t think we have a conclusive answer yet.
According to my friend Jake Cheriff, who is a professional sound engineer, the audio clip “must have the same overtones or something.” I’ll update the post if he decides to explain that further.
Matthew Heimbach, one of the more prominent figures in America's white nationalist movement, was arrested at an Indiana trailer park back in March for a violent outburst stemming from his involvement in what has to be among the most incestuous—not to mention confusing—love triangles of all time. According to police, the 27-year-old allegedly attacked his wife, Brooke Heimbach, and her stepfather, Matthew Parrott, after an amateur sleuthing operation in which the duo apparently caught Heimbach while he was busy rekindling an extramarital affair with Parrott's wife.
Besides causing Heimbach to lose the respect of his racist followers, the altercation also essentially imploded the Traditionalist Worker Party. Heimbach and Parrott were the far-right group's co-leaders, and the latter vowed to delete the group's member database and website as a final fuck-you to the guy who had cucked him.
In the latest development of the Jerry Springer episode that keeps on giving, Heimbach was just sentenced to 38 days in jail, local Fox affiliate WDRB reports. But not directly over the trailer park affair. Instead, this sentence stemmed from a March incident in which Heimbach shoved a black college student named Kashiya Nwanguma in the back at a Trump rally after the then-presidential candidate asked supporters to remove protestors from the crowd. Heimbach later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of harassment and was spared jail-time on the condition he not re-offend. The love triangle-related charges—misdemeanor battery and felony domestic battery in the presence of a child under 16—violated the terms of that deal.
Heimbach first rose to prominence in racist circles after starting a White Student Union at Towson University in 2013 that roamed the campus with the stated goal of protecting white students from violent crime. In the years he spent as the chief of the Traditionalist Worker Party, he continuously drifted further to the right—aligning himself with violent racist skinhead groups like the Hammerskins, and appearing prominently at the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville last summer. At least some members of his group also reportedly provided security for Richard Spencer's often violent campus appearances.
In March, Heimbach pleaded not guilty to the charges stemming from allegedly beating up his family in the trailer park incident, and a pre-trial hearing was scheduled for May 30, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
