Frisky Weekend Quiz: 3 Golden Globes, Black Representation, 2 Accents

Actress Gillian Anderson was born in Chicago, graduated from The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago, then moved to New York City to further her acting career.

Where did Gillian Anderson acquire her British accent?

When she was 15 months old, her family relocated to London, UK, where she grew up until returning to the US at the age of 11.

What’s new?

Alec Baldwin has deleted his Twitter account following a backlash to a tweet he posted referencing Anderson speaking in her natural American accent at the 2021 Golden Globes, despite usually speaking with a British accent in her roles. In a video posted to Instagram on Mar. 3, 2021, Baldwin says he’s a “huge fan” of Anderson’s, but that Twitter is “where all the assholes in the United States and beyond go to get their advanced degrees in assholiness.”

A mic drop is a gesture of intentionally dropping one’s microphone at the end of a performance or speech to signal triumph. The maneuver became widespread in the 1980s when rappers and comedians used it. An early occurrence was Eddie Murphy in 1983 in his standup show Delirious and again in his 1988 film Coming to America. 

What’s new?

Coming 2 America, the sequel, originally planned to hit theaters last year, was sold due to the pandemic by Paramount Pictures to Amazon, where it begins streaming Friday, March 3, 2021.

• Rewatch Coming to America!
• Watch Coming 2 America, the 2021 sequel, only on Amazon Prime.

Born in Canada, Drake’s first public recognition was as an actor in Degrassi: The Next Generation. He left the series after releasing his debut mixtape Room for Improvement in 2006. 

New Fact:

Drake has released the new Scary Hours 2 EP, Friday, Mar. 5, 2021. The rapper initially scheduled the release of his sixth studio album, Certified Lover Boy, for January 2021 before delaying the release date because “between surgery and rehab, my energy has been dedicated to recovery,” as he wrote in an Instagram story in January. 

The Los Angeles Times revealed that no Black members were in the 87-person voting body of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and that there hasn’t been one in at least twenty years. 

What’s new:

Within the first half-hour of the 2021 Golden Globes telecast, three members of the HFPA appeared on stage to pledge change. “We recognize we have our work to do,” said vice president Helen Hoehne. “We must have Black journalists in our organization.”

LIBOR stands for London Interbank Offered Rate. It is the primary benchmark, along with Euribor, for short-term interest rates around the world.

Libor 2021 fact:

On Friday, Mars 5, 2021, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) called a formal end to nearly all Libor rates on December 31. The Libor is being replaced by rates compiled by central banks after lenders were fined billions of dollars for trying to rig what was once “the world’s most important number” used for pricing home loans and credit cards across the world

In a video posted Thursday, Mar. 4, 2021, on the Twitter account, BurntBanksy, a member of an art group, burns a 2006 print titled Morons, reportedly purchased for $33,000 at Christie’s in December. The BurntBanksy member explains to the camera: “By removing the physical piece from existence and only having the NFT, we will ensure that no one can alter the piece and it is the true piece that exists in the world. By doing this, the value of the physical piece will then be moved onto the NFT.” The video piece is on auction at the Opensea website.

What’s NFT again?

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a particular type of cryptographic token which represents something unique. NFTs create digital ownership for several specific purposes that require individual digital identities like crypto art, digital collectibles, and online gaming.

Naypyidaw officially spelled Nay Pyi Taw, is Myanmar’s capital and third-largest city.

2021 Coup in Myanmar

YouTube removed five channels run by Myanmar’s military on Friday, Mar. 5, 2021, for violating its community guidelines and terms of service, following the Feb. 1 military coup that removed its elected government, provoking massive public protests.

Facebook has also banned all pages linked to Myanmar’s army. TikTok announced it would remove “all content that incites violence or spreads misinformation” after armed Myanmar soldiers and police used the app to deliver death threats to protesters against last month’s coup.

On Thursday, Mar. 4, 2021, the Biden administration demanded that military authorities in Myanmar stop their brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and release demonstrators and journalists that the army detained.

Princess Diana died at age 36 in a car crash in Paris after her divorce from Prince Charles. 

The news:

Prince Harry, now 36 himself, told Oprah Winfrey that “My biggest concern was history repeating itself,” apparently referring to the death of his mother, Princess Diana. Before the Duke and Duchess of Sussex moved to California, the couple had complained about the British tabloids’ treatment of Meghan. The interview aired on March 7, 2021, on CBS. 

Theodor Seuss Geisel adopted the name “Dr. Seuss” as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and a graduate student at Lincoln College, Oxford. He added the “Dr.” to his pen name because his father wanted him to practice medicine.

Which Dr. Seuss books will no longer be published?

On Dr. Seuss’s birthday, March 2, 2021, which is non-coincidentally National Read Across America Day, the company that preserves the author’s legacy announced it would no longer publish  Six of Dr. Seuss’s books because of racially insensitive imagery. The six children’s titles are If I Ran the Zoo, Scrambled Eggs Super, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, The Cat’s Quizzer and the 1958 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, in which a character described as Chinese has two lines for eyes, carries chopsticks and a bowl of rice, and wears traditional Japanese-style shoes.

“Soul” is the first Pixar movie to have a Black character in the lead. 

Another fact:

It is also the first feature-length Pixar released as a Disney+ Original, without wide theatrical distribution. 

Barbra Streisand was the first female director to win the Golden Globe award – for “Yentl” in 1984.

New Fact:

The 2021 Golden Globes award for best picture drama went to Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” a Western set across economic recession and personal grief. Zhao became the first woman of Asian descent to win the best director. She’s also the second woman in the history of the Globes since Streisand to win the award. Until this year, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated just five women in the category.

Pictured is Chris Cuomo, CNN host, brother of current New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and film producer Maria Cuomo Cole, and son of former New York Governor Mario Matthew Cuomo.

In the news:

Chris Cuomo told CNN viewers Monday, Mar. 1, 2021,  that he “obviously” couldn’t cover the stories surrounding his older brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The latter has been accused of sexual harassment by three women.

• Read & Listen to Chris Cuomo’s provocative analysis of the harsh truths that the pandemic and Trump years have exposed about America in Deep Denial. Available on Audiobook, Kindle, and print.