The Takeaway

Last week, actor Peter Dinklage—best known for his role on Game of Thrones—appeared on the podcast WTF with Marc Maron. 

Dinklage talked about a lot: the evolution of his career, mainstream success, and his new film Cyrano. But there was one particular moment that got people’s attention:

They’re very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White but you’re still telling a story of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me. You’re progressive in one way but still making ****ing backward story of seven dwarves living in a cave. What the **** ya doing man?

Dinklage, who has dwarfism, was calling out Disney’s decision to make a live action adaptation of Snow White. Since his criticism, Disney has said it would be reimagining the dwarf characters in the fairytale. Now, this is not the first time Hollywood has misfired when it comes to its portrayal of the dwarfism community. For decades, the entertainment industry has perpetuated harmful stereotypes about people with dwarfism. 

For more on this, The Takeaway spoke to Rebecca Coakley, the program officer for the Ford Foundation's U.S. Disability Rights program.

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine seem to be persisting as White House officials on Wednesday said they will send 3,000 troops to NATO allies in Eastern Europe, though the troops will not be deployed to Ukraine. We get the latest from Nahal Toosi, Senior Correspondent for Foreign Affairs at Politico. This announcement comes as Russia continues to build up its military near Ukraine.

Nahal Toosi, Senior Correspondent for Foreign Affairs at Politico, gives us the latest

For five years, comedian Al Madrigal spent time riffing on his Mexican identity as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s “Latino correspondent.”

In his own stand-up, Madrigal has highlighted the absurdity of being lumped into the “Latino comedian” category, an experience he first contended with when he left the comedy scene of his native San Francisco to perform in Los Angeles. 

As Madrigal has learned firsthand, representation in the entertainment industry is often handled bluntly, to put it mildly. But this month, Madrigal is using his clout to address a glaring absence. As a comics fan, Latino superheroes were pretty much nonexistent when he was growing up. 

Thankfully, that’s starting to change, Marvel’s new Spider-Man, Miles Morales, is one recent mainstream example. And Madrigal is adding to the mix with “Primos,” a new comic he wrote that tells the story of Ricky Pascal, a teenager who discovers that he and his cousins have been handed down some pretty potent superpowers. 

The Takeaway spoke with Madrigal about the events that led to his name being published on the front page of “Primos.”

This summer the Supreme Court will decide the fate of a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Most court observers expect the Supreme Court’s decision to undermine or even overturn Roe v. Wade.

As the country awaits the Court’s decision, the fight over abortion is heating up in the states.  Nebraska and Florida are preparing bills further restricting access to abortion. Some of the proposed bills are modeled after Texas’s controversial anti-abortion law, SB-8, which bans abortion after six weeks and allows people to sue doctors who provide them. 

For more on this, The Takeaway spoke with Elizabeth Nash, Principal Policy Associate for State Issues at the Guttmacher Institute. 

Then, The Takeaway speaks to Katie Woodruff, a public health social scientist at the University of California San Francisco, about how the news media covers abortion. 

In a new series called Georgia 2022: At the Intersections, The Takeaway will look at Georgia throughout the year, all with the goal of understanding how politics, culture, legacy and the future of Georgia are shaping our nation.

After Georgia sent two Democratic senators to Washington and handed the states electoral college votes to Joe Biden, the Republican-controlled legislature in Georgia passed restrictive voting legislation that limits mail ballot drop boxes, adds strict new ID requirements for mail ballots, and gives voters less time to request mail-in ballots.

A recent report by Mother Jones shows that voting restrictions have already made it harder for Georgia voters to cast a ballot. During municipal elections in November 2021, Mother Jones found that Georgia voters were 45 times more likely to have their mail-in ballot applications rejected than the year before. Georgians who successfully obtained mail ballots were also twice as likely to have those ballots rejected once they were submitted compared to the previous year.

The Takeaway spoke with Ari Berman, senior reporter at Mother Jones covering voting right, and the author of “Give us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.”

On February 1, the documentary “Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power," will have its television premiere on Starz.  The film profiles Congresswoman Barbara Lee, representative for California’s 13th Congressional district, and her iconoclastic political career.

Rep. Lee joined The Takeaway to speak about her life-long commitment to activism and the new film.

Nearly two years into this pandemic, doctors still don’t know much about why some people develop long lasting COVID symptoms and why others don’t. But, a study published last week by the scientific journal Cell, found several factors that were identified early in a person’s coronavirus infection that could show increased risk of developing long-term symptoms.

Some studies show that as many as half of COVID-19 survivors experience some sort of lingering symptoms, these patients are known as “Covid long-haulers.” We heard from listeners about their long-term Covid symptoms and from one of the leaders of a Covid long hauler group.

We also spoke with Dr. Jason Goldman, infectious disease clinician and researcher at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington and lead clinical author of this study on long-Covid.

SpaceX’s satellite Falcon 9, which launched in 2015, is due to crash into the moon in a matter of weeks. The satellite did not have enough fuel for its return trip and its “chaotic orbit” will be over when it hits the moon and creates a crater upon impact.

Falcon 9 is one of many rockets and satellites that we've launched into space on a one way trip, and it’s one of over 27,000 pieces of trackable space junk tracked by the Department of Defense that can cause damage to spacecrafts and brighten the skies with light pollution as it reflects the sun’s light. That number does not account for the smaller, untrackable paint chips, nuts and bolts and other small bits of trash that are undetectable but can be just as harmful because of the speeds at which they travel. We speak with Moriba Jah, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and Chief Science Advisor for Privateer, about space trash and the growing need for regulation.

On Thursday, Justice Stephen Breyer officially announced his retirement from the Supreme Court after more than 27 years on the high court. He will step down at the end of this term sometime in the early summer. On Thursday, Biden also reaffirmed his commitment to nominate a Black woman, and he said he intends to announce his decision before the end of February. The Takeaway speaks with Melissa Murray, Law Professor at NYU, faculty director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network and co-host of the legal podcast called “Strict Scrutiny,” and Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center, about the historical significance of a Black woman on the high court, how identity does or does not influence jurisprudence, and their thoughts on potential nominees. 

The Equal Rights Amendment, an amendment to the Constitution that would invalidate any state law that discriminates against women, has been on a nearly 100 year journey. It was first introduced in 1923 and did not pass both the Senate and House until March 1972. On January 27,  2020. Virginia became the 38th state to vote for ratification.

Section 3 of the amendment states that it takes effect two years after its ratification, so by that standard the ERA became law on Friday... or did it?

Representative Carolyn Maloney represents New York’s 12th Congressional district and chairs the Oversight and Reform Committee. She joined to discuss the resolution and the amendment’s importance.