It all started at dinner one night near Paris in 1865. A group of Frenchmen were discussing their dictator-like emperor and the democratic government of the U.S. They decided to build a monument to American freedom—and perhaps even strengthen French demands for democracy in their own country. At that dinner was the sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (bar-TOLE-dee). He imagined a statue of a woman holding a torch burning with the light of freedom. Turning Bartholdi’s idea into reality took 21 years. French supporters raised money to build the statue, and Americans paid for the pedestal it would stand on. Finally, in 1886, the statue was dedicated. On July 4, 1884 France presented the United States with an incredible birthday gift: the Statue of Liberty! Without its pedestal it’s as tall as a 15-story building. She represents the United States. But the world-famous Statue of Liberty standing in New York Harbor was built in France. The statue was presented to the U.S., taken apart, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in crates, and rebuilt in the U.S. It was France’s gift to the American people. MOVIES The Impossible Position of Emma Stone’s Best Actress Oscars Speech In a moment many have fumbled, Stone was more ready than most. BY HEATHER SCHWEDEL MARCH 12, 20243:06 PM Emma Stone accepting the Oscar for best actress in 2024 for Poor Things and Lily Gladstone in the audience. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Disney/Stewart Cook and Kevin Winter/Getty Images. TWEET SHARE COMMENT “Oh, boy.” Those were the first words of Emma Stone’s acceptance speech upon winning Best Actress at Sunday night’s Academy Awards for her performance in Poor Things. Receiving an Oscar must be overwhelming no matter the circumstances, and as Stone would go on to share, she was also accepting the award while wearing a dress with a split-open back. But that “oh, boy” was also an acknowledgement that winning the award had put her in a decidedly tricky position. Going into the awards, many Oscar analysts had favored Lily Gladstone, who was nominated for her work in Killers of the Flower Moon, though Stone was very much in contention too. Both performances earned heaps of praise from critics, but many people thought Gladstone had the stronger narrative on her side: Whereas Stone, who is white, already has an Oscar (for 2016’s La La Land), a Gladstone win would have been historic, marking the first acting Oscar ever for a Native American. History will have to wait at least another year. It would be unfair to reduce both performances to the actors’ race, and there are a lot of ways one might explain Stone’s win. Even still, Stone knew she was in a weird position—not least because of the parallels between the real-life events of awards season and what goes on in Stone’s other major role from last year, the Showtime series The Curse. In the show, Stone plays a wannabe HGTV star who builds expensive, garish sustainable houses in a modest New Mexico town and is convinced she can rebrand gentrification into a positive thing. Stone’s character, Whitney, has a particularly uncomfortable relationship with a Native American woman, an artist she ends up essentially paying to be her friend. The clueless, self-congratulatory treatment of other races by white people is a major theme of the show, and it sometimes felt like it had a meta layer given some of the past choices earlier in Stone’s career, such as starring in the white-savior movie The Help and signing on to play a multiracial character of Asian, Swedish, and Hawaiian descent in Aloha. ADVERTISEMENT By starring in The Curse, Stone is definitely someone who’s thought about this, and she had clearly thought at least a little bit about what it would mean for her to win an Oscar over Gladstone. But in addition to thinking about it in her capacity as an intelligent, curious person, she would also be naïve if she didn’t think about what it could mean for her image. Winning an acting award (any award, but especially an acting one) ironically involves putting on another performance. Actors have to worry about how to arrange their faces when the winner is announced, so they seem gracious even if they’re pissed or they seem surprised even though they knew it was coming. In this case, Stone faced those usual pressures plus an additional layer. Stone won a few of the precursor awards, and many pundits agreed she had a good shot, so her win didn’t come out of nowhere, but it still qualified as the surprise of the night. Stone herself looked almost shellshocked when she won, and a little uncomfortable. She reportedly told a journalist earlier that night that she thought there was no way she was winning. That seems a little ridiculous, given that she’d already won a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for the performance. I’m not saying she was lying; maybe she convinced herself she had no chance. But I’d have a hard time believing she didn’t at least have a conversation with her publicist about how to handle it if she won. What are publicists for if not that? ADVERTISEMENT Stone had a few clear examples of what not to do. Over the past decade or so, there’ve been lots of conversation about the whiteness of the Oscars and other awards shows, and while there’s been some progress, institutional racism also persists. Occasionally, white artists who benefit from it have created minor public relations disasters for themselves in their clumsy attempts to call it out. After Macklemore won Best Rap Album over Kendrick Lamar at the 2014 Grammys, he texted Lamar, “You got robbed. I wanted you to win. You should have. It’s weird and sucks that I robbed you.” We know this because he also shared a screenshot of the text publicly, an act that seemed to lead to more mocking and eye-rolling than anything else. A few years later, in 2017, when Adele won the Album of the Year Grammy over Beyoncé, Adele was well-meaning but awkward as she talked about how much Beyoncé meant to her and her Black friends. The opportunities to say the wrong thing in such a situation are many. ADVERTISEMENT Stone’s game-time decision on how to play it seemed to be to own her moment, with a little hand-wringing, but not an excessive amount. At no point does she put her foot in her mouth. If you watch the speech she gave upon winning her first Oscar, she hits many of the same beats in this one, including thanking her fellow nominees by name. But she also seems more frazzled this time, saying at one point, “I don’t know what I’m saying.” She said she’d thought about this moment and been reminded it was not about her but everyone involved in Poor Things. We may never know if she was normal-frazzled or frazzled because she was afraid the whole internet would be mad at her for “taking the Oscar away” from Lily Gladstone. Either way, she pulled it off, and she can rest assured: Most people seem to agree she’s not the villain here. The academy, however, still has some explaining to do. Nikola Jokic vs Shaquille O'Neal: ESPN Analyst Erupts With Shocking Claim. Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic is often compared with legendary big men in the league. But has he already surpassed Shaquille O'Neal? ESPN Full Court Press: Miami Heat and Jimmy Butler Host the Defending NBA Champion Denver Nuggets and Nikola ... The Denver Nuggets look to extend their winning streak to four games when they visit the Miami Heat in a rematch of the 2023 NBA Finals. Chris Paul disregard's Golden State Warriors teammate in choice for major NBA award. Kerr: 'No Doubt' Warriors Can Make NBA Playoff Push; Behind Lakers in West Standings. Jonathan Kuminga wants to be 'Warrior for life' two months after he reportedly lost faith in Steve Kerr. Steph Curry for U.S. president? ‘Maybe,’ Golden State Warriors star says. Stephen Curry hints at future in politics, maybe even president Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry is contemplating a potential entry into politics, even hinting at the possibility of a future. Splash Brothers Make History in Warriors Win Over Nets. What we learned from the Spurs' win over the Warriors The short-handed Spurs shot 51 percent from deep to win on the Splash Brothers home court. Newcastle United wonderkid Trevan Sanusi has been the major positive from the Magpies' youth set-up this season leaving head coach Eddie Howe impressed with his progress. Still just 16, the youngster is playing above his age group with Ben Dawson's Under-21s after arriving from Birmingham City for a nominal amount of compensation last summer. But his value is tipped to soar in the next few years after the Blues were left devastated by his departure. Birmingham chiefs believed that Sanusi would take Jude Bellingham's record at St Andrew's as their youngest debutant before Newcastle struck. The Magpies beat Manchester United to his signature and this season Sanusi has hit the ground running. James Harden is on the injury report for Thursday's game. Kawhi Leonard, James Harden questionable vs. Bulls. Clippers list James Harden and Kawhi Leonard questionable vs. Bulls. Harden closed with 12 points (4-10 FG, 2-6 3Pt, 2-2 FT), two rebounds, seven assists and two steals in 34 minutes during Tuesday's 118-100 loss to Minnesota. This was a tough showing for Harden, especially considering that Kawhi Leonard left this game after 12 minutes with a back issue. If Leonard is forced to miss additional time, Harden and Paul George would likely absorb the majority of Leonard's usage. Harden recently shook off a shoulder injury, and there's no indication that it's still an issue.

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June 26, 2016