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In news that is no surprise (but very welcome nonetheless), BBC America has decided to renew their smash hit series Killing Eve for a fourth season. The thrilling series follows the cat and mouse game between assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) and Eve (Sandra Oh) the special agent who can’t help but be drawn to her.

Sarah Barnett, president, AMC Networks Entertainment Group and AMC Studios, released an effusive statement about the show, saying, “How could we not have massive confidence in Killing Eve? It has won big in every major award show and is the highest growing show on U.S. television for six years.” Barnett also lauded the women in front of and behind the camera adding, “The reason for this series’ emphatic embrace is the brilliant women who breathed it into being: Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Emerald Fennell, Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer, Fiona Shaw and its fairy godmother, executive producer Sally Woodward Gentle.”

Season three of the series airs this spring, featuring new head writer Suzanne Heathcoate (See, The Walking Dead). Each season has featured a different female showrunner, but no one has been announced yet for season 4. Sandra Oh has won a Golden Globe for her performance, and Jodie Comer won an Emmy last year for hers. Both Comer and the show are nominated for Golden Globes this year.

(via The Hollywood Reporter, image: BBC America)

• Netflix announces their original movies for 2020 and there are SO MANY of them. (via AVClub)
• Here’s a look at the most influential women in genre in the 2010s. (via Syfy Wire)
• Happy New Year to Leap and Leap only:

Y’all know Leap. pic.twitter.com/aiiSSBQA24

— Blair Braverman (@BlairBraverman) January 1, 2020

• Maddy Myers on what it’s like to be a female journalist who covers video games. (via Kotaku)
• On saying goodbye to queer power couple Nico and Karolina in Runaways. (via Autostraddle)
• Jane Eyre as seen through Redditships:

I [35M] married a woman [32F] from a slave-owning family for money. She had mental illness and cheated on me, so I removed her from home and loved ones and chained her in an attic. Now I want to marry an employee [18F] without telling her I’m married because she’ll say no. AITA?

— Elizabeth Picciuto ❄️🌱🌞🍂 (@epicciuto) January 3, 2020

What are you up to this weekend, Mary Suevians?

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On day 5 of the inaugural ESSENCE Full Circle Festival, team ESSENCE brought the Global Black Economic Forum to Accra, Ghana.

An ultimate meeting of the minds, the forum brought business executives, political leaders and community change agents from around the world together to engage in progressive, solution-based dialogue focused on economic development and cultural exchange.

Guest speakers included ESSENCE Ventures Founder & Chair Richelieu Dennis; Ghana President Nana Akufo Addo; Accra Mayor Mohammed Sowah; L’ Oreal West Africa executive Sekou Coulibaly; New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell; actor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Boris Kodjoe; Afrodesiac Worldwide founder Chiedza Makonnen; media executive/radio personality Ebro Darden; WME Executive Bozoma Saint John; Target executive Caroline Wanga; media mogul Mona Scott-Young; Studio One Eighty Nine creative director Abrima Ewiah; world-renowned architect Sir David Adjaye; filmmaker and philanthropist Juliet Asante; actress Nicole Amarteifio; entrepreneur Alvin Bekoe; Christie Brown executive Vanessa Bannerman; Ghanaian business maven Kevin Okyere and many more.

Watch the video above for a look inside at the inaugural ESSENCE Global Black Economic Forum – Africa.

The post ESSENCE Global Black Economic Forum – Africa appeared first on Essence.

When I first saw The Force Awakens after a fully funded summer media apparatus of hype in the winter of 2015, I remember the following Christmas morning my mother turned the corner, threw me a Force Awakens pillow, and coldly chuckled “Merry Christmas.” It was a good joke — like many the Force is moderately […]

Bad news everyone! Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam is back with more terrible and offensive opinions. The 79 year old Brazil director is currently on a press tour for his long-gestating film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which he has struggled to make for over twenty years. In a new interview with The Independent however, Gilliam was more interested in talking about the victimization of white men. Oh man, if he thinks white guys have it tough, JUST WAIT until he hears how bad everyone else has it!

Journalist Alexandra Pollard summed up her interview on Twitter quite succinctly:

I can't say it was a pleasure to interview Terry Gilliam https://t.co/05FNz8sDVW

— Alexandra Pollard (@alexjpollard) January 4, 2020

In his rambling interview, Gilliam shares his thoughts on the current cultural climate and the Me Too Movement, saying “We’re living in a time where there’s always somebody responsible for your failures, and I don’t like this. I want people to take responsibility and not just constantly point a finger at somebody else, saying, ‘You’ve ruined my life.’”

Curiously, Gilliam’s expectations of taking responsibility don’t extend to men in power who abuse women. The director added, “No. When you have power, you don’t take responsibility for abusing others. You enjoy the power. That’s the way it works in reality.” Yeah dude, we know that’s how it works. That’s how it has always worked. That’s the problem.

He went on, saying “Yeah, I said #MeToo is a witch hunt … I really feel there were a lot of people, decent people, or mildly irritating people, who were getting hammered. That’s wrong. I don’t like mob mentality. These were ambitious adults.” Gilliam, like many opponents of the Me Too Movement, conflates the long overdue reckoning with an indictment of men in general. He shares an anecdote about a female producer who he described as a “neurotic bitch”, as evidence that … women can suck too?

Pollard calls him out on there being a staggering difference between someone being unpleasant to work with and a serial rapist, but Gilliam pivots, saying that these things shouldn’t be taken so seriously. That is, until he perceives call-out culture as being directed towards him. “I understand that men have had more power longer, but I’m tired, as a white male, of being blamed for everything that is wrong with the world … I didn’t do it!”

Over all, the director comes across as that obnoxious guy in your freshman dorm who argues about everything just for the sake of arguing (you know, the one always playing devil’s advocate). Much like his comments on Black Panther, it’s a tiring take from an old man desperate to shock his way out of irrelevancy.

Gilliam, much like Don Quixote, is chasing the dream of a less evolved era, looking to slay political correctness and accountability. But in reality, he’s just an old man swinging blindly at the windmill.

(via The Independent, image: KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images)

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