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Hasan Minhaj and the limits of representation : It’s Been a Minute

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Hasan Minhaj and the limits of representation : It’s Been a Minute

Stephanie Mills in The Wiz, and Hasan Minhaj on stage.

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Stephanie Mills in The Wiz, and Hasan Minhaj on stage.

Hulton Archive/Kevin Winter

A recent New Yorker piece on Hasan Minhaj found that some crucial bits of his stand-up act didn’t stand up to fact-checking. Stretching the truth in comedy is par for the course, but how does that work for a figure like Minhaj, who’d previously doubled down on these stories in interviews and is known for his political satire shows? Brittany is joined by writer Imran Siddiquee and journalist Allana Akhtar to make sense of an entertainment industry that created the conditions for his fame.

Then, we explore what happens when you recast western fantasies through a Black lens? We start by looking at one of the most beloved Black fantasies of our time: The Wiz. It’s Been a Minute producer, Corey Antonio Rose shares how the original Broadway production of The Wiz made the storyline from The Wizard of Oz hit different for post-civil rights America. Brittany is then joined by African American Studies professor Darieck Scott to discuss the difference between representation and RE-presentation in fantasy.

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This episode was produced by Baron Girdwood and Corey Antonio Rose. We had engineering help from Kwesi Lee. We had fact checking help from Candice Vo Kortkamp. It was edited by Jessica Placzek and Bilal Qureshi. Our executive producer is Veralyn Williams. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sangweni and our senior VP of programming is Anya Grundmann.

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A longtime 'American Idol' music supervisor and her husband are found dead at home

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A longtime 'American Idol' music supervisor and her husband are found dead at home

FILE – The stage at the “American Idol” farewell season finale at the Dolby Theatre on Thursday, April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File)

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An “American Idol” music supervisor and her husband were both found dead in their Los Angeles home Monday afternoon.

Officers were conducting a welfare check at a home in the Encino neighborhood when they found the bodies of a man and woman with gunshot wounds.

An “American Idol” spokesperson confirmed the deaths of Robin Kaye and her husband, Thomas Deluca, both 70. The couple owned their home, according to public records.

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“Robin has been a cornerstone of the Idol family since 2009 and was truly loved and respected by all who came in contact with her,” an “American Idol” spokesperson said in a statement. “Robin will remain in our hearts forever and we share our deepest sympathy with her family and friends during this difficult time.”

Los Angeles police said Tuesday afternoon they arrested 22-year-old Raymond Boodarian in connection with the couple’s deaths.

Boodarian was allegedly burglarizing their home while the couple was away July 10. He is accused of shooting and killing Kaye and her husband when they returned and then fleeing on foot. Boodarian has not yet been assigned a public defender and could not be reached for comment.

Police responded that same afternoon to reports of a burglary at the Encino home, but said in a press release there were “no signs of forced entry or trouble.”

Kaye, an industry veteran, has also worked in the music departments of several other productions such as “The Singing Bee,” “Hollywood Game Night,” “Lip Sync Battle,” and several Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants.

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Randy Couture Out Of Hospital After Crash, Recovering At Home

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Randy Couture Out Of Hospital After Crash, Recovering At Home

Randy Couture
Out Of Hospital After Crash
… Recovering At Home

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5 takeaways from the 2025 Emmy nominations

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5 takeaways from the 2025 Emmy nominations

Britt Lower and Adam Scott in Severance. Both were nominated for Emmys Tuesday.

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Emmy nominations came out on Tuesday, and the winners will be announced on September 14. There are a lot of familiar faces, a few new ones, and a few … new old ones. (You can see the list here.) Here’s what we noticed.

Shows with big, well-regarded casts ran up their totals

Seth Rogen plays a flustered movie executive in The Studio.

Seth Rogen in The Studio.

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Severance and The Studio, both from Apple TV+, were the most-nominated shows on the drama and comedy sides, respectively. Severance received 27 nominations, and The Studio received 23. Of those Severance nominations, nine were for actors. Of the Studio nominations, 10 were for actors — including quite a run through the guest actor categories, where five men and one woman were nominated. The Studio and Severance were both very well-reviewed shows, too, but when you look at totals, it helps to have a lot of famous faces people admire. (See also: The White Lotus, which continues to crowd the supporting categories in drama.)

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Jeff Hiller and Bridget Everett in Somebody Somewhere.

Jeff Hiller and Bridget Everett in Somebody Somewhere.

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The supporting actor in a comedy series category has a couple of nice surprises

It will always be annoying that the Emmys never paid much attention to the beautiful, funny Somebody Somewhere on HBO. But in the show’s final year of eligibility, at least, they found room to recognize Jeff Hiller, who played Joel, and who gave one of the most distinctive, heartfelt, big-hearted performances of the season. They also recognized an up-and-comer named Harrison Ford — his first Emmy nomination ever — for his great work in Apple TV+’s Shrinking, which was one of the most disappointing snubs last time around.

Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobb in The Penguin on HBO.

Colin Farrell in The Penguin.

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The streaming players are always shifting

For a while, the big streamers at the Emmys were Netflix and Hulu, but Apple TV+, Max and Disney+ are all well-established in the awards game at this point. Apple TV+ has to be thrilled with the big showings for The Studio and Severance, plus Shrinking and Slow Horses and even the very so-so Presumed Innocent miniseries. HBO is still very popular among voters, but its presence is changing a bit. When it comes to big nominees, there are The White Lotus and The Last Of Us on the drama side, and those aired on traditional HBO. But then there’s The Pitt in drama series, and Hacks in comedy, and those were on Max, or what was then Max — in other words, they were streaming-only. (An outlier: The Penguin, which is competing in the limited/anthology series category, was developed for Max but ultimately did air on HBO.) Disney+ also got 14 nominations for Andor, and Netflix is still in there with Adolescence, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, and with Black Mirror. Hulu’s top performer this year, at least by numbers, and excluding those FX shows like The Bear, is Only Murders in the Building, though Paradise did well also.

Ted Danson as Charles in A Man on the Inside. Listen to the Pop Culture Happy Hour episode about the new series.

Ted Danson in A Man on the Inside.

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There are always some heartbreakers

There is a difference between the concept of a “snub” and a nod that just didn’t happen, but there’s always some very good work that goes unrecognized. As a big fan of The Pitt, I was disappointed not to see Taylor Dearden, who played Dr. King, nominated, and as a fan of Netflix’s A Man on the Inside, I would certainly have nominated that. There will be great consternation over Diego Luna and the rest of the cast not being nominated for Andor, often paired with eye-rolling over all those The White Lotus acting nominations, which do seem to be nearly automatic — you get on that show, you get nominated.

Tramell Tillman in Severance.

Tramell Tillman in Severance.

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The most fun comes from the first-time nominees

It’s always fun to see people get their first nods. There are established actors who just haven’t specialized in TV, like Harrison Ford, Colin Farrell (in The Penguin), and Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny (both for Monsters). There are surprising first-timers like Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, who have both been on TV for ages and were both finally nominated for Netflix’s Nobody Wants This. Exciting actors who are blowing up, like Tramell Tillman and Zach Cherry, both of Severance. The great Michael Urie, nominated for Shrinking and worth every vote; the marvelous Cristin Milioti, who’s been the best thing about several different shows and is nominated now for The Penguin.

And, of course, in the end, there are all those nominations for The Studio, which, as a show-business satire, would give a hefty side-eye to the whole process.

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