Carole V Bell

The 1995 adaptation of Terry McMillan's novel celebrated the beauty of Black sisterhood.

There’s a moment of personal reckoning early on in Danzy Senna’s new novel. The biracial protagonist bristles with resentment when she meets the cool, brown-skinned Black man she thinks might be the future husband her psychic predicted at a party and…

Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker critic Emily Nussbaum first conceived her sweeping chronicle of the rise of reality TV in 2003 — shortly after the debut of The Bachelor and three years into Survivor. But back then the reception from fellow writers…

The new Hulu series Queenie explores the quarter-life growing pains of lonely South Londoner Queenie Jenkins. The first of her British Jamaican family to go to university, Queenie is a struggling writer awkwardly straddling multiple worlds. An…

Oscar Micheaux is a trailblazing American filmmaker whose name and fandom — including Spike Lee and the late John Singleton — are better known than his groundbreaking films. A festival opening in New York on Friday, May 3, at Film Forum aims to fix…

An edgy, hyper-current Hollywood based second-chance romance between former college sweethearts, Myah Ariel's debut novel When I Think of You radiates breakout energy. It's like a fizzy, angsty mash-up of Bolu Babalola's 2022 campus love story Honey…

For a total psychopath, Tom Ripley is remarkably popular. As we near the 25th anniversary of the acclaimed Oscar-nominated big screen adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's most infamous creation, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Netflix has released a striking…

I heard the names of the trailblazers of Black film – Oscar and Lena and Paul and Hattie— long before I ever saw their work. I learned early on that despite the fact that Hollywood hadn’t been welcoming, Black people have been a part of American film…

The Hallmark Channel is best known for its popular contemporary Christmas-themed fare. But this February, or "Loveuary," as they are calling it, the network has a different cause for celebration — the debut of a quartet of new films inspired by the…

Satire is hard; parody even harder. Satires that take on race and the politics of art — those are the thorniest. The much lauded PEN winner and Booker Prize shortlisted author Percival Everett is genuinely a master of all of the above. Scathing,…

Playwright and producer Branden Jacobs–Jenkins welcomed two babies into the world during the Covid pandemic. One was his now sunny and vivacious toddler. The other, far more finicky, seedling he’d nurtured for a decade—the television adaptation of…

Between this year and the next, a wildly exciting and diverse group of adapted programs are coming to our homes, and some of the most anticipated will be based on works by women and authors of color. In March, the series version of National Book…

Since its 2016 premiere, Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar has been a gorgeous ode to Black family and love. Six years in, at the start of its valedictory season, the series has earned its place in American cultural history with a legacy that’s arguably…

This essay references a book whose title contains a racial slur. The one thing most people know about Nella Larsen's Passing is that it explores a peculiar kind of deception — being born into one marginalized racial category and slipping into…