And that worked, for a while. May and Nichols soon outgrew the New York nightclub scene, catapulting into the national consciousness. But after May and Nichols split in 1961, their paths diverged. Both went on to direct films. Nichols became famous for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Silkwood, and Working Girl, helming 21 films in his career. May directed just five, to decidedly lukewarm critical reception.
Elaine May and Mike Nichols
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Getty Images
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Getty Images
Since then it has been “close to impossible to see her movies,” as the critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, who coedited the recent ReFocus: The Films of Elaine May, puts it. But even so, May has not faded. Quite the opposite; she’s resurgent.
In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded May a National Medal of Arts. In 2016 the Writers Guild of America honored her with a lifetime achievement award. A few months later she returned to acting for the first time in 16 years in the Amazon series Crisis in Six Scenes. She has no social media presence, but on Twitter, fandom for May is a constant, whether it’s writer Rachel Syme proposing an “anthology series, but every season is Elaine May” or viral appreciations of her Playbill headshot—a grainy, low-res iPhone selfie. The actor and author Marlo Thomas, who’s known May for decades, notes, “It’s no accident that Elaine was name-checked several times on the first season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. That’s the kind of historical and cultural impact she’s had.”
If May commented on such matters (and she turned down a request to comment for this article), she might have noted that she achieved all that despite the media, not because of it.
A poster for A New Leaf, 1971.
LMPC/Getty Images
In 1968, May secured a landmark deal to write, star in, and direct A New Leaf—a film in which Walter Matthau plays a man who plots to marry a bookish, socially awkward heiress, kill her, then inherit her wealth. With that movie, May became only the third woman ever in the Directors Guild of America. But reports piled up about her decision to take Paramount to court over A New Leaf—the studio had wanted something shorter and cheerier than her murder-filled three hour-long cut. She lost.
In 1972 she released her second film, The Heartbreak Kid, to greater acclaim, but critics seemed to attribute its positive reception to the strength of writer Neil Simon’s script. In a review for The New Yorker, film critic Pauline Kael said the film was “in a different league from her first wobbly movie,” suggesting May was better at interpreting others’ work than executing her own.
“As a black woman who’s worn my hair natural since 1995, I’ve understood how important hair and hair texture is for women, especially the issues we’ve had surrounding our hair,” says Eggleston Bracey. That’s also why she felt a corporate responsibility to expand on [Unilever brand] Dove’s commitment to real beauty and diversity. “I was looking out around the room, and I was looking at how diverse the legislative officials were; how many of our black legislative officials had textured hair. And it occurred to me, ‘Wow, with this critical mass, we can change this.'” Her plea to those legislators? Find a resolution to hair discrimination.
Eggleston Bracey’s speech cut right to Mitchell’s core. “It’s personal for me from many perspectives,” the senator tells Glamour. Growing up, she wore braids with decorative beads through high school—a style that helped solidify her sense of self. She now wears locs. “Fast forward several years, to having my son in high school. He wore twists to school on the first day of his junior year, then came home that evening and made the decision to take them out, because he wasn’t comfortable with bullies,” she says, adding, “I graduated from high school in 1982 in Riverside [California], which wasn’t a bastion of progressive politics. At no point was my wearing braids to school every day an issue. I thought, How did we go backward?”
Mitchell flagged down Eggleston Bracey as soon as she got off the podium.
“I followed her out of the breakfast, grabbed her staff member, gave them my card, and said, ‘Here I am, a state senator in California, the fifth-largest economy in the world. A progressive, important state legislature, and I’m loc’d. I think it would make sense that I carry the bill,'” Mitchell recalls. It’s a crucial example of just how vital representation in our boardrooms and our legislation truly is—in few other scenarios could two people with the power to make change not only empathize but honestly understand why the need for protection against hair discrimination is so imperative.
From there, the two went to work, recruiting the help of a handful of activist organizations to co-found the CROWN (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) Coalition. While Mitchell began drafting language for the bill, Eggleston Bracey led Dove’s CROWN Research Study, in which the brand surveyed 2,000 women ages 25 to 64 who worked in office settings to uncover just how societal norms and corporate grooming policies unfairly impact Black women in the workplace. The results, depending on your own awareness, were either shocking…or not.
“What the study showed is how pronounced and prevalent the issue around hair is,” says Eggleston Bracey. “Eighty percent of women reported that they’ve changed their hair from its natural stage to fit in a corporate environment. That’s four out of five black women in the study. I knew it would be an issue, but to see how broad-scale and pervasive it was [was surprising].” Another stat that was widely reported from the survey? Black women were 50 percent more likely to have reported having been sent home or know of a black woman sent home from the workplace because of her hair.
The stats and Mitchell’s powerful introduction of the bill spoke for themselves. In July, the California state assembly unanimously passed The CROWN Act. Five days later, the governor signed it into law, making California the first state to legally enforce that locs, twists, and braids are just as school- or business-appropriate as any other hairstyle. New York state followed 12 days later with its own anti-discrimination bill.
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Some have made the argument that there are more pressing issues to set legislation around than hair, a complaint both Malalis and Mitchell have heard repeatedly. “When we first came out with our guidance, there were some folks who said, ‘Hair? Who is going to care about hair?'” says Malalis. “But there were other folks who said, ‘I cannot believe you actually have to say this. I can’t believe people don’t know this is racist.’ The reality is that so many people have been experiencing this because schools and employers have never really cross-examined their own policies or what’s behind them. Is this really about health and safety? No, it’s not. Because even the U.S. Army who exacts the highest degrees of health and safety amongst its ranks has also said this is not okay. So if it’s not about health and safety, what [are these rules] really based on?”
Unfortunately, most of the things Bryant wore on Shrill were custom, because costume designer Amanda Needham couldn’t find as many tailored, smart, well-made pieces that would fit Annie’s style (and body) as she needed. “I wanted to normalize a woman of that size being fashionable. You never really see super stylish, put-together girls in that size on camera,” says Needham. “I just could not believe that we hadn’t seen anything like this before and that there wasn’t anything off-the-rack that represented these characters that we wanted to see. Why can’t people over a size 8 or even 14 feel confident in their body and have options to wear?”
Annie and her best friend Fran on Shrill.
Allyson Riggs/Hulu
And talk about options. For a night out, Annie puts on a sequin party dress. It’s everything I always was told—or told myself—I “couldn’t” wear: short, sparkly, form-fitting, and bold. Needham custom-made this dress to put a “middle finger to all of that,” she says, and show that plus-size women can wear whatever the hell they want.
“You don’t have to wear a caftan. You don’t have to disappear. Who is in charge of body confidence? Why can’t we each be in control of that for ourselves? So we went shorter. We went higher with the heel. We went loud. We went sparkly because she deserves that,” Needham explains.
Annie’s sequin dress was a highlight of her wardrobe on ‘Shrill’. It’s everything I was told I “couldn’t” wear.
Allyson Riggs/Hulu
If that dress was the opening act, the headliner was the pool party, which flashes back and forth between Annie as a kid and her life now as an adult. It’s by far the most body-positive, thrilling moment of the series. It’s also the moment that made me cry the most. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been in a bathing suit around other people, worried about what they’ll say or think about me. Wearing a button-down and jeans, it seemed like she wasn’t going to embrace her body. But by the end, she found herself letting go and dancing to Ariana Grande amongst beautiful, proudly jiggling bodies of other plus-size women. And Needham says Annie revealing her bathing suit underneath was representative of a “real emotional breakthrough.”
Annie dances at the Fat Babe Pool Party in a button-up and jeans.
Allyson Riggs/Hulu
The scene, says my friend Leah, “is a reminder that you’re your own harshest critic—I didn’t feel like I was picking apart all those women’s bodies, so why do I feel the need to do that to myself?”
Another friend, Maggie, agreed, recognizing this moment from her own life: “It’s when you decide that you’re going to stop hating yourself and you don’t care what other people think. It’s so powerful when that finally clicks in your brain and it was moving to see it play out on screen. I kept thinking about how much this show would’ve affected me if I had seen it when I was a teenager. I’m sorry that she never got to see anything like it.”
Later, Annie reveals her swimsuit underneath.
Hulu
Behind-the-scenes, filming the pool party was an emotional experience, too, according to Needham. “Going in, a lot of women probably assumed there would be nothing for them to wear. But we went all-out to present a world of options and cater to every single woman,” she says. “By the end, everyone was crying. We had this moment of just being human and being seen together in a way that was just nice. Everybody just accepted each other and everybody felt so beautiful and it just really came through on camera.” I’d argue that the clothes—having options, and plenty of stylish ones—were a big part of that.
I may still be learning to love myself and only scratching the surface of dressing for myself, not for the prying eyes of others. (Next up, the Savage x Fenty bra that Annie absolutely slays in.) I hope that there’s more Shrill to help me through the hard times of self-doubt and to remind insecure teenagers like I once was that they’re worth more than the number on the scale. I’d love to get to the point where I can say, like Annie, “I’m the one with the fat ass and big titties, so I get to decide what we do” if a man treats me wrong. But for now, I’m starting with taking some more stylistic risks, inspired by Shrill. And if fashion companies start to deliver more fashion size-20 bodies like mine can actually buy, it might just spark a revolution.
Alyse Whitney is a proudly plus-size, Korean-American woman who is the senior food editor at Rachael Ray Every Day and a longtime contributor at Glamour. Follow her: @alysewhitney.
“I always say there’s been a victory every year in my career,” Ashley Graham tells me, the day after her 31st birthday, having just wrapped a photo shoot. “Whether it was the first time I was in Vogue, or the first time that Lane Bryant put me in a national campaign and it went viral because the networks said it was too racy…. There was just always something.”
When Graham fronted that magazine in a purple string bikini, she became the first curvy model to do so—another victory. At that point she had already been in the industry for 16 years, but it still served as a sort of introduction to the Ashley Graham we know now: outspoken, passionate, and sexy. “SI is a company that doesn’t want a pretty girl, they want a personality,” she says. “Someone who’s got something going on, someone with a voice. And I had that.”
Not only was Graham given a bigger platform, but the conversation about size inclusivity in fashion also got a major signal boost. Every photo shoot, partnership, and appearance following it allowed the Nebraska native to continue to push long-standing industry conventions about what models look like. She’s done it onstage, in her book, and now with a podcast.
Graham launched Pretty Big Deal in early October with a jam-packed lineup. (Kim Kardashian West was her very first guest.) She talks to people from a variety of fields—from fashion (Halima Aden) to acting (Gabrielle Union) to social media (Lilly Singh)—about everything: career, relationships, personal style, religion, tokenism, race…. Sometimes the conversation can get difficult, but that’s something that’s rooted in Graham’s own approach to learning.
“I think everybody in today’s day and age is curious, right? There are so many different people that don’t want to be labeled, or they want to be labeled…. There are so many different backgrounds, and people are assuming this and assuming that,” she says. “What I’ve always done—especially when I first got married and I was more involved in black conversation—[is say], ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ You don’t know it because you don’t ask questions.” (Graham’s husband, director Justin Ervin, is black, and she credits him for a lot of her education when it comes to race and privilege.)
Graham wanted to ask those questions—the ones that can feel awkward in casual company, but get to something bigger—to help foster this curiosity, empathy, and understanding. After all, she’s been that person for many when it comes to talking about size inclusivity and body diversity in fashion, even before the Sports Illustrated cover came out. Graham’s been pushing to have these conversations for almost two decades.
Now people are listening.
Graham is well aware that she’s not the first plus-size supermodel ever. She is, however, the first curvy model to achieve certain firsts in the industry: first on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, first to walk the Michael Kors runway, first to appear on the cover of American Vogue.
“When you’re the first of something, you are always going to have to answer the hard questions,” she says. People aren’t going to like you. People are going to hate you. People are going to be confused by you because you’re the new kid in town. But if you ask me, I’m not the new kid in town—this body’s been around for centuries and now I’ve just been given a voice.”
This is something that comes up in her book as well as on the podcast: Her curviness is something that’s been an ideal in communities of color for much longer than she’s been in the fashion business. “Because I’m white and because of white privilege, I’ve been given a platform,” Graham acknowledges. “But we can’t erase all the women who came before me.” Nor those that are her contemporaries: “Now, I can also talk about the Marquita Prings, the Precious Lees, the Paloma [Elsessers]…. The list goes on and on, so why aren’t we talking about them as well?”
She continues, “I’ve had this conversation with some of my white friends, and it’s hard for them to understand what that means—the only reason I understand is because of the hard conversations that I’ve had with my husband. He’s the one who really opened my eyes to that and made me understand.”
Graham says she’s still learning. “I’ve been married to Justin for eight years now, and there are still moments where I’m like, Oh God, did I just say the wrong thing?” When that happens, though, it’s about looking for the “teachable” opportunity—much as she tries to do in her conversations on the podcast.
Having these kinds of difficult conversations at home can be hard enough, but Graham opens herself up to have them publicly too—on the air, on social media, on any platform she can. This is nothing new to her: She’s been doing this throughout her career, even with the gatekeepers of the fashion industry who, for many years, kept models like her on the sidelines.
But now that she’s in the room with so many of these stakeholders, she’ll “just bring it up naturally. Unapologetically.” For example: In February 2018, Graham was asked to be the first plus-size model to walk the Michael Kors runway during New York Fashion Week. As she tells it, she was slated to wear a gray dress with a floor-length coat, but she had a better idea. “I said to Michael, ‘Why don’t we put that cropped one, and then you’ll see my body?’ And he was like, ‘Fabulous.’ He heard me loud and clear.”
Veronica Beard dress, $595, shopbop.com. SJP by Sarah Jessica Parker heels, $325, SJP by Sarah Jessica Parker Pop-Up Shop, NYC.
In some ways, this unapologetic nudge has yielded results: She’s noticed how she can borrow samples right off the runway, including the Prabal Gurung sample she plucked from the designer’s Spring 2019 runway for a Vogue fashion conference. She was excited—proud, even—to borrow the ribbed, neon piece. But that feeling went sour fast, as commenters started speculating that the model had lost weight, with people writing on her Instagram: “Why did you lose weight? Your forms were nice,” and “You’re so tiny now…I’m so jealous.”
“It sucked that everybody had to go in on me like, ‘Oh, you lost so much weight.’ If these people actually knew me—which, you know, they don’t and maybe never will—they would know that my body just hasn’t changed,” she says. “To be completely honest, I’ve gained weight in the last five years, not lost weight. If you actually look at my IMG Polaroids from when I first signed with them to now, you can tell I’m thicker. I mean, it’s just age. Geez. Whatever!”
It’s not like Graham hasn’t heard this before—she wrote a piece for Lenny Letter back in 2016 (at the height of the Sports Illustrated cover buzz), the gist being: “I’m never going to be big enough, I’m never going to be small enough; I’m always going to be too loud, I’m always going to be too quiet; I’m never going to be good enough for anyone. So I might as well just stay in my own lane and be great enough for me.” It’s been a journey getting to this point—early in her career, she would sweat the comments and worry about how she came across on social media, but now? “I don’t care. It’s like I have this shield of armor over me.”
Still, she’ll read the comments. (She’s human, after all.) And sometimes, it hurts. (Again, human.)
“There will be one or two every once in a while, where it’ll sting,” Graham admits. “I’ll be like, Why did they say that? That is so rude. Did their mother and father just not teach them that if you have nothing good to say don’t say it at all?” But again, Graham sees the teachable moment here: “You know, sometimes I write them back—like, one guy said to me, ‘Oh, you look pregnant,’ and I wrote back, ‘Oh no, honey, that’s just fat.’
You may have heard about Graham’s vision boards—it’s a tradition she and husband have, of putting together a list of goals they want to achieve in the near future. When we awarded her a GlamourWoman of the Year Award in 2016, she told us about what was on it back then: a beauty campaign (check), a book (check), and “maybe a talk show” (check).
“God works in mysterious ways,” she says. “The first year I had put Sports Illustrated on my vision board, I got the ad in Sports Illustrated, for Swimsuits for All, so I was like, ‘OK, God, I see you.’” When Graham makes her vision boards, she focuses on goals that aren’t necessarily in process but that she knows are achievable: “It’s things that you want and are already chasing after in your own life. I’ll pray and ask God for so many things, but I’m not just sitting on my couch waiting for them to happen—I’m out there fighting and hustling and being proactive about my prayers.”
Graham admits that it’s been a minute since she’s updated her vision board because 2018 took care of itself: The launch of Pretty Big Deal was special for her—not because she’d always wanted her own podcast empire, but because she’s dreamt of having her voice be heard. “As a model, I think it’s our duty to not just be a pretty face in the world, but to actually speak up and use our platform in a bigger way,” she says. I know it’s not going to last forever, and it’s not something that I’m necessarily going to want to do forever, so what else is it out there that I want to achieve?
“Something that I’ve really learned in the podcast world is that your voice is never too small,” she continues. “In some cases, I’ve felt like my voice was so small, but it’s not. Your voice can be so loud and so heard. You just have to step up on whatever platform you have and scream it from the rooftops—like, ‘This is something I want to learn,’ Tthis is something I know,’ ‘This is something that I want to help other people with’—and don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid at all to speak up.”
According to a bombshell report from The New York Times, Harvey Weinstein—the Hollywood powerhouse and studio executive behind films like Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, and Silver Linings Playbook—has faced numerous allegations of sexual harassment and unwanted physical contact from female employees, some dating back three decades.
Times reporters spoke to dozens of former and current employees of the Weinstein Company, a film studio founded by Weinstein and his brother, Bob, as well as people within the broader film industry and uncovered numerous accusations of inappropriate conduct. At least eight settlements have been reached since 1990, including a 1997 settlement with a then 23-year-old Rose McGowan. The Charmed actress reached a $100,000 settlement with Weinstein after an incident in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival; however, according to a legal document obtained by the Times, this monetary agreement was “not to be construed as an admission” but rather an effort to “avoid litigation and buy peace.”
Several women relayed similar stories of misconduct by Weinstein, often occurring when the executive would invite them for meetings at a hotel. The Times spoke with actress Ashley Judd, who said that Weinstein invited her to the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel in the 1990s for what she assumed was a breakfast meeting. Instead, she was summoned to his room. Weinstein was wearing a bathrobe and asked if Judd could watch him shower or if he could give her a massage.
When Judd recounted the incident to the Times, she said she remembered wondering, How do I get out of the room as fast as possible without alienating Harvey Weinstein?
Another woman, former temporary employee Emily Nestor, also met with Weinstein at the Peninsula in 2014. According to the Times, she was told that if she “accepted his sexual advances, he would boost her career.”
The Times also obtained a 2015 memo written by former Weinstein Company employee Lauren O’Connor who was among the women who received a settlement from the film executive. O’Connor detailed allegations that spanned a two-year period, including an incident with another female employee who said that Weinstein appeared naked before her and forced her to give him a massage. As O’Connor wrote, the encounter left the woman “crying and very distraught.”
“There is a toxic environment for women at this company,” O’Connor wrote. “The balance of power is me: 0, Harvey Weinstein: 10.”
Though dozens of employees were aware of Weinstein’s alleged behavior, very few ever confronted him about it. Instead, Weinstein perpetuated what the Times called a “code of silence.” Employees could not criticize company executives in ways that could hurt both the company’s or a personal employee’s reputation. And women who did receive settlements—which typically spanned from $80,000 to $150,000—often signed confidentiality agreements.
But when O’Connor’s memo hit in 2015, executives and board members at the Weinstein Company—including Weinstein’s brother—were disturbed. But ultimately, O’Connor reached a settlement with Weinstein, withdrew her complaint, and left the company—all the while thanking Weinstein for the experience to be part of the film industry. After the settlement was reached, the board was informed that there was nothing to investigate.
In a statement given to the Times, Weinstein said, “I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it. Though I’m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go.”
He revealed that he’s been working with therapists and is planning to take a leave of absence in order to “deal with this issue head-on.”
Attorney Lisa Bloom, who has been advising Weinstein and previously represented clients who brought sexual harassment charges against Bill O’Reilly, told the Times in a statement that Weinstein “denies many of the accusations as patently false.” Bloom has been counseling Weinstein on gender and power dynamics, and referred to him as an “old dinosaur learning new ways.”
Bloom further said that she’s “explained to him that due to the power difference between a major studio head like him and most others in the industry, whatever his motives, some of his words and behaviors can be perceived as inappropriate, even intimidating.”
However, according to a report from BuzzFeed News published Thursday afternoon, one of Weinstein’s other attorneys, Charles Harder, is preparing a lawsuit against the Times and will donate proceeds to women’s organizations. In a statement to BuzzFeed news, Harder said:
“The New York Times published today a story that is saturated with
false and defamatory statements about Harvey Weinstein. It relies on
mostly hearsay accounts and a faulty report, apparently stolen from an
employee personnel file, which has been debunked by 9 different
eyewitnesses. We sent the Times the facts and evidence, but they
ignored it and rushed to publish. We are preparing the lawsuit now.
All proceeds will be donated to women’s organizations.”
A representative from the Times told BuzzFeed News, “We are confident in the accuracy of our reporting. Mr. Weinstein was aware and able to respond to specific allegations in our story before publication. In fact, we published his response in full.”
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