Pharrell Williams and stars from 'Hidden Figures' condemn 'hateful comments'
Gospel singer Kim Burrell calls homosexuality 'perverted,' Pharrell Williams and stars from 'Hidden Figures' condemn 'hateful comments'
Gospel singer Kim Burrell labeled homosexuality “perverted” in a sermon she gave in her other life as a Pentecostal preacher, quickly eliciting responses from both Pharrell Williams, with whom she sings on the “Hidden Figures” soundtrack, and two stars from that film, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe.
Burrell and Williams were originally scheduled to perform the soundtrack song “I See a Victory,” on which he is also a producer, on “The Ellen Show” on Thursday, with Monáe also slated to appear as a guest.
But on Tuesday morning, show host Ellen DeGeneres announced on Twitter that Burrell would not join Monáe and Williams on Thursday’s show.
“I came to tell you about sin,” Burrell said in the recent sermon at the Houston church she founded and where she is pastor, Love and Liberty Fellowship Church International. “That perverted homosexual spirit, and the spirit of delusion and confusion, it has deceived many men and women.”
A firestorm of criticism was touched off when video of the sermon began to circulate and Burrell took to Facebook Live to add, “There are a lot of people that I’m aware of that struggle or deal [with] or have that spirit. Have I discriminated against them? Have I ever outright told them that I don’t love you and you going to hell? … I don’t give that call.”
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This is a shameful situation for two reasons, the first being the obvious homophobic rhetoric and hate, and the second is the potential it has to mar what could be a great movie, certainly one of historic importance.
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Please read this article!
Black women who helped put America in space get their day onscreen
As if to ensure the 2016 Oscar nominations don’t come out as white as Santa’s beard, three fine films about African-Americans in the late ’50s and early ’60s have come out in the last eight weeks: “Loving,” “Fences” and “Hidden Figures.”
The last, which is the least overtly emotional, makes subtle points while depicting three women who helped NASA enter the space race with the Soviet Union. Most people who watched John Glenn become the first man to orbit the Earth multiple times – myself included, as a boy in 1962 – had no idea such women put him up there safely.
Director Theodore Melfi wrote the screenplay with Allison Schroder, adapting Margot Lee Shetterly’s book. They never overstress a scene: Whites working around black colleagues are quietly dismissive but not overtly cruel, and a Virginia police officer who finds the trio stranded by the roadside is suspicious but not vicious. The movie indicts exclusion and racial hierarchy without finding villains inside that system.
“Figures” takes place at Langley Air Force Base, as officials make calculations for launches at Cape Canaveral. Math prodigy Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) crunches numbers at amazing speed, but she’s more than a human computer in a pre-IBM age. Her insights into patterns go beyond those of male co-workers, and her boss (lethargic Kevin Costner) figures that out.
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‘Hidden Figures’ is a crowd-pleaser with math appeal
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