Our weekly recap highlighting the best feature stories from around the internet.
Photo: Unknown
I Believe I Can Fly: The Oral History of ‘Space Jam’ – by Shea Serrano, The Ringer
“We were stunned. All of us. It’s literally our first day together and you’re like, “Hold on. Porky Pig is speciesist?!” Speciesism is a big issue. I’m looking around the room and we got birds, we got bunnies. We got a coyote, we got a Tasmanian devil, we got a duck. I’m a skunk! It’s like, “Who else does he feel this way about?” There was a town hall scene later in the movie and they had me sit next to Porky, and it was real uncomfortable. Porky made a big fuss there about how he had to be in the first row with his hillbilly homies and also how he wouldn’t sit on the same side of the room as Sylvester.”
NZ and the 'Mandela Effect': Meet the folks who remember New Zealand being in a different place – Henry Cooke, Stuff
“A month or so ago I found a large community of people online who strongly remember New Zealand to be in a very different place to where it is. Some remember it being northeast of Australia, instead of southeast. Some remember New Zealand in essentially the same place, but Australia way further south. Some have it even further off.”
I'm So Damn Tired of Slave Movies – by Kara Brown, Jezebel
“It’s obvious at this point that Hollywood has a problem with only paying attention to non-white people when they’re playing a stereotype. Their love of the slave movie genre brings this issue out in the worst way. I’m tired of watching black people go through some of the worst pain in human history for entertainment, and I’m tired of white audiences falling over themselves to praise a film that has the courage and honesty to tell such a brutal story.”
The Surprising Return of MC Jin – by Alex Wong, GQ
“Now that I knew how Jin had discovered stand-up comedy, I wanted to find out exactly why he was doing it. Was it for financial reasons? To satisfy something that’s been creatively missing in his career since he bursted onto the hip-hop scene 14 years ago? Or was it simply a challenge he wanted to meet? And that’s how I ended up following Jin around over a six-month period as he worked on honing his craft as an anonymous comedian at sold-out comedy clubs, a featured star at an Asian nightclub, and near-empty basement bars on weekday afternoons.”
Trump Gets Ready to Be a Bad Loser - by Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker
“What’s crucial for Trump is to be able to convince his hard-core supporters that he—and they—didn’t lose, but that the dreaded Republican establishment sabotaged the Trump campaign in the final weeks. This strategy is in keeping with the way Trump has always spun his greatest defeats, from his failures in Atlantic City to his loss in the Iowa caucuses. He either denies that he failed or he argues that he was cheated.”
The Professor Wore a Hijab in Solidarity — Then Lost Her Job – by Ruth Graham, The New York Times Magazine
“In December, Hawkins wrote a theologically complex Facebook post announcing her intention to wear a hijab during Advent, in solidarity with Muslims; the college placed her on leave within days and soon moved to fire her. Jesse Jackson had compared Hawkins with Rosa Parks, while Franklin Graham, an evangelist and Billy Graham’s son, declared, “Shame on her!” Students protested, fasted and tweeted. Donors, parents and alumni were in an uproar.”