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In the span of just 13 minutes, the Oscar-shortlisted short documentary Hysterical Girl unpacks a lot.

The film directed by Kate Novack not only elucidates one of Sigmund Freuds most famous case historieson a suicidal teenage girl the psychoanalyst called Dorabut how Freuds writing about her continues to impact our culture more than a century later.

We have one foot in 1900, Novack tells Deadline, and we have one foot in 2020.

The documentary draws a link between the Dora case and more recent examples of the reaction to women who have accused powerful menBrett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein and othersof sexual misconduct or assault.

Novack observes, I think it then becomes really hard to argue, Oh, no, thats the case from the past, Freud isnt relevant anymore, weve moved on.

As the film reveals, Dora had been sexually assaulted at age 13 by an adult male, a family friend. Doras parents dismissed her story as false, but Freud believed her. Crucially, though, he labeled Doras problem as hysteria, and informed his patient that the trauma she felt resulted from trying to repress sexual feelings aroused by her assault.

This father figure [Freud], this authority figure, responded to her on the one hand by believing that this had occurred, producer Andrew Rossi explains, but by trying to convince her that there was some other reason that it took place, and that actually she wanted it.

Freud interpreted a dream Dora related to him as a fantasy of forced seduction, implying her actual sexual assault amounted to that.

The [film] really is about this young sexual assault survivor having a voice, Novack comments, and about the legacy of Freuds theories in helping to silence and shame survivors.

Freuds conclusions about Dora map onto the notorious 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Thomas, when Anita Hill testified he had sexually harassed her during an earlier phase in the jurists career. Hysterical Girl intersperses clips of the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee cross-examining Hill.

I find the references to the alleged sexual harassment to be the product of fantasy, Republican Senator Arlen Specter declares. Later in the documentary Specter intones, Miss Hill was disappointed and frustrated that Mr. Thomas did not show any sexual interest in her.

The film includes a rapid-fire succession of similar moments from recent American historyconservative commentator Ann Coulter dismissing Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford, Rush Limbaugh branding as a slut a woman who supported insurance coverage for contraceptives. In another brief clip, Paula Jones recounts her fear of accusing President Clinton of sexual harassment when he was governor of Arkansas. Whether its Jones, Hill or Ford, or innumerable other women, such claims have met with knee jerk skepticism.

We live, in a sense, in a world Freud shaped.

He helped to bring systems of disbelieving women into the 20th, and then beyond into the 21st century, Novack says. The Dora case is sort of exhibit A in that trajectory. The Dora case tells that story most vividly in a way that really, sadly I think, lands somewhat seamlessly in the contemporary moment.

The filmmakers cast a teenage actress, Tommy Vines, to play Dora. Instead of costuming her in turn-of-the-20th-century attire, she wears clothes of today, situating Dora not in the misty past but the present.

Tommy was 16 at the time, the same age as Dora, Rossi points out. She seems to embody this youthful fragility, and the whole world is ahead of her.

Dora, whose real name was Ida Bauer, went through 11 weeks of therapy with Freud, but then broke it off.

Dora persisted in denying my interpretation, Freud wrote, ascribing the young womans repeated rejection of sexual advances from her attacker to jealousy and revenge.

Hysterical Girl contains glimpses from films like Last Tango in Paris and Rosemarys Baby directed by mento further illustrate the durability of narratives that purport to explain the psychology and motivations of women.

It can be depressing how deeply embedded these ideas are. Theyre so embedded that they can be invisible, Novack observes. I almost view Freudian thinking, especially around this issue, as like a religionits there, but you dont see it. And so I think that by calling it out and naming it, it can be an important part of the process. I hope that the film can contribute in that way.

The documentary is part of the award-winning Op-Docs series of the New York Times. The newspaper shared a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for exposing the Harvey Weinstein scandal, reportage that set off a societal reckoning with sexual abuse of women by men in Hollywood and other industries.

[The Times] played such an important role in breaking and really moving along and pushing it to be really an international story, the Weinstein story, Novack notes. For the film to exist on their site, it was a natural audience, and it really meant a lot to us personally to have it there.

The final five Oscar nominees in the documentary shorts category will be announced Monday, March 15. In the meantime, Novack and Rossi are savoring the shortlist recognition.

I hope that it will bring awareness to the film, and that more people will see it, Novack tells Deadline. It means a lot also that maybe some of the filmmaking [choices] resonated with people who are our peers.

To the extent that it is taking a position which is political, and that its taking some formal risks, or is not conventional, its really heartening to have this recognition of the film, Rossi affirms. If people can think about the issue of survivors coming forward and being disbelieved, and from this maybe reconsider some of the entrenched cultural norms, every effort to change that is tremendously important.

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Hysterical Girl Filmmakers On How Freuds Study Of Traumatized Girl Impacts Today, From Clarence Thomas Hearings To Brett Kavanaugh - Deadline

I assume its overkill to continue listing the evidence against death row inmate Kevin Cooper, duly convicted of committing a quadruple murder back in 1983. The blinding proof of his guilt was covered in last weeks column.

To review, this included shoeprint evidence, footprint evidence, cigarette and tobacco evidence, blood evidence and DNA evidence, proving that this violent rapist and mental hospital escapee:

hid out in a house next to Doug and Peggy Ryens Chino Hills, California, home for two days after escaping from prison;

used a hatchet and hunting knife taken from his hideout to hack to death two adults and two children at the Ryen home andcritically wound a third child;

stole the familys station wagon and later abandoned it in Long Beach, along with his DNA on prison-issued cigarettes, before escaping to Mexico;

returned to California, where he raped a woman at knifepoint, leading to his capture.

This week, well consider the specific claims made by The New York Times Nicholas Kristof purporting to raise doubts about Coopers guilt.

Kristofs special pleading proves that no one on death row is innocent. I didnt pick this case. The anti-death penalty zealots picked it, splashing it across the Newspaper of Record. I have to believe they didnt choosetheir worst example to showcase,so lets look at the honesty of their arguments about Kevin Cooper.

KRISTOF:

Although Josh [the 8-year-old who miraculously survived the hatchet attack] had indicated that the attack was committed by several white men, the sheriff announced just four days after the bodies were found that the sole suspect was Kevin Cooper

First of all, eyewitness testimony is the least credible evidence, particularly in the case of children - as the child molestation hysteria of the 1980s demonstrated and even more particularly in the case of a child whos found lying in a bloody mess surrounded by his murdered familymembersafter having his throat slit and being attacked with a hatchet.

In any event, Joshnever said he saw three men.He said he initially thought it must have been the three Mexicans who had stopped by the house looking for work earlier in the evening. But even in his initial interviews from his hospital bed, he said he onlysawone assailant in the house:a man with bushy hair.

KRISTOF:

Sadly, a tan T-shirt believed to have been worn by one of the killers didnt produce enough DNA to provide a profile.

That IS sad. Luckily, its also not true. The Department of Justice DNA lab at UC Berkeley did find Coopers DNA on the tan T-shirt discarded near the murder house, which also containedpartial DNA profiles of two of the victims, Doug and Peggy Ryen.

KRISTOF:

Could the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Office really have planted evidence, including placing Coopers blood on the tan T-shirt? We do know that the sheriffs office had a history of going rogue. Floyd Tidwell, the sheriff, was himself later convicted of four felony counts for stealing 523 guns from the evidence room [further denunciations of the sheriffs department].

The planted evidence ruse is a popular one for springing murderers, except oops! the T-shirt tested by the Berkeley DNA labwasnt in the possession of the sheriffs office.The tan T-shirt, along with the cigarette butts from the Ryens station wagon, had been in the custody of the San Diego Superior Court Evidence Clerk from the end of the trial right up until 2001, when they were shipped directly to the Berkeley DNA Laboratory for testing.

KRISTOF:

Likewise, hairs found clutched in the victims hands werent Coopers (no hairs from an African-American were found at the crime scene) but didnt lead to a match with a suspect, either.

While I love the idea of a 10-year-old girl ripping an African Americans hair out by the root as he came at her with a hatchet, the clutched hair nonsense has already been thoroughly investigated and dismissed by the courts.

A team of DNA experts spent weeks testing hairs from Jessicas hands, as well as two hairs found on Doug Ryens right hand and one hair from Christopher Hughes arm. Their conclusion? The testing failed to identify another assailant and confirmed that all tested hairs most likely came from one or more of the victims.

As U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn L. Huffexplained:

This should not be surprising.The hairs adhered to the victims bodies, including their hands, because there was a large amount of blood on the victims and a large amount of hair on the debris-ridden carpet. Also, the victims each sustained hatchet wounds to the head, causing clumps of cut hair to fall to the ground. Both animal and human hair were recovered from the hands of the victims. Just as with the animal hairs, the cut and shed human hairs adhered to the bloodied victims hands because the victims came in contact with the carpet when they were dying on the floor.

Finally, Kristof tries to pin the murder on other suspects (whom we know arent guilty or hed be defending them).

KRISTOF:

A different longtime suspect in the case recounted, not long after the murders, how he had killed the Ryens and Chris Hughes.

I guess confessions are only questionable in the case of the Central Park rapists. Kristof doesnt say who the confessor is specifically, but it sounds like the one repeatedly put forward by Coopers lawyers. Courts have characterized this so-called confession asa mental patients secondhand version of a confession.

KRISTOF:

This other suspect is a white man whom Ill identify just by his first name, Lee, for he must be presumed innocent

Lee came to the attention of the authorities during the investigation after his girlfriend, Diana Roper, fingered him as the killer: She reported that he had returned home late on the night of the killings wearing bloody coveralls, in a car that resembled the Ryens station wagon.

Roper turned Lees bloody coveralls over to the sheriffs office which eventually threw them away without testing them. By then, the sheriffs office had arrested Cooper, and deputies didnt want a complication.

Dont be fooled by Kristofs fake humility he must be presumed innocent all that blather about what Roper said was invented by defense attorneys.

Roper was not technically Lees girlfriend: She was his bitter ex. Far from bloody, the few red splotches on the coveralls were most likely paint (along with manure and dirt). Roper told investigators that she didnt even know if the coveralls belonged to Lee.

But let me quote from the court that reviewed the coveralls evidence: [I]ssues of guilt, innocence and sentence should never be decided on information obtained from persons whobelieve they are witches and believe an article of clothing is connected to a crime because of a vision they receive during a trance.(Emphasis mine.)

Yes, Ropers evidence was based on a vision she had during a trance because she believed she was a witch. These facts are exhaustively detailed in court orders and opinions but are entirely absent from the vast news coverage of Coopers case. Might distract from the claim that the sheriffs office tossed the coveralls only to avoid a complication in their single-minded pursuit of the wrong man as Kristof claims.

No one on death row, not one person, is innocent. Believe nothing you read in the media about their putative innocence. Its always lies and nonsense, as with Kristofs pet murderer, Kevin Cooper.

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LIBERALS [HEART] MURDERERS! - Ann Coulter

Comedy Central hosts Roasts of various celebrities, especially those whove been involved in a scandal recently. The insults are usually things said in jest about the recipients of said insults and are a fun way of allowing celebrities to let off steam about the person on the hot seat.

When Comedy Central decided to host the Roast of Rob Lowe in 2016, they didnt anticipate that an unexpected guest would outweigh Lowe with the number of insults they received. Pundit Ann Coulter got so much heat it was almost cringy to watch. Among those who insulted Coulter was renowned singer, Jewel. Read on to find out what Jewel had to say about Coulter.

The musician was born in Utah, but shortly after, her family moved to their Alaska homestead. Jewels parents divorced when she was eight, and she moved in with her father. She and her father lived at a house that was far away from town, and she spent most of her time exploring the outdoors. Jewel performed in bars around the town and sometimes would perform with her father. After receiving a scholarship to a Michigan Art School, she moved and learned how to play the guitar. She began songwriting at the art school. She then moved to California and began playing in coffee houses.

The talented singer was discovered during one of the days she was playing at a coffee shop. She got signed to Atlantic Records and released her first album in 1995 called Pieces of You. The album, however, didnt break even. Her big break came when she curtain-raised for Bob Dylan in 1997, and her song Who Will Save Your Soul got massive airplay. Although the album was met with lukewarm reviews, it made it to the top 4 on the Billboard charts.

Jewel is known for her vulnerable lyrics and sweet melodies. However, in 2003 the songbird released a pop-sounding album, which was a stark contrast to her previous sound. Fans and critics didnt like the album and criticized her a lot saying that she had strayed too far from her catchy melodic and folksy sound.

RELATED: What Is Singer-Songwriter Jewels Net Worth?

Aside from making music, Jewel also doubles as an author and actor. She has starred in various movies such as Framed for Murder: A Fixer Upper Mystery and Concrete Evidence: A Fixer Upper Mystery. In both of these movies, Jewel plays a contractor and investigator called Shannon Hughes.

In 2016 Jewel was invited to the Roast of Rob Lowe to provide a musical approach to the event. She had met Lowe when the two were to film The Lyons Den. She appeared for one episode of the show and the two remained friends. During the Roast session, the singer performed a parody of her hit song, You Were Meant for Me. In the piece, Jewel joked about being the 16-year-old who was having sex with Lowe in his 1988 sex tape. Other people who were on the show included Pete Davidson, David Spade, and Ann Coulter.

Coulter is known for her unfiltered and often offensive comments and views about anything not Republican. She is a well-known Conservative pundit who doesnt hold back from being the devils advocate. Coulter is famous for her hateful views, racist comments, and false and exaggerated claims about historical events.

During the Roast, many people seemed to have aimed most of their insults toward Coulter, which seemed to make the pundit visibly uncomfortable. Many of the insults aimed at Coulter used sexist tropes and misogynistic language. However, singer Jewel seemingly stole the show when she said, As a feminist, I dont agree with whats being said here but as someone who hates Anne Coulter, Im delighted, a statement which the crowd applauded.

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Jewel Hates Sexist Jokes But Will Let It Slide When Theyre Aimed at Ann Coulter - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Cameron Williams, a library worker in Chattanooga, Tenn., who helped organize protests against police brutality, was fired from his job after being accused of appearing in a social media video burning copies of books by former President Donald Trump and conservative author Ann Coulter.

Bob Dole, 97, the longtime Republican Kansas senator who ran for president in 1996, announced he is beginning treatment for Stage 4 lung cancer, saying that while he's facing hurdles, "I join millions of Americans who face significant health challenges of their own."

Ivanka Trump, 39, the daughter of former President Donald Trump, won't seek Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's U.S. Senate seat in 2022, a Rubio spokesman said, as Ivanka Trump, in a statement, called the GOP incumbent "a tremendous advocate for working families."

Gail Samuel, current president of the Hollywood Bowl and chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will become the first female president and chief operating officer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra when she takes over in June.

Brent Bennett, 37, of Hartford, Ala., who bought cattle from a Thomas County stockyard last year but still owes $383,000 because of bounced checks and unpaid bills, was charged with theft by deception, sheriff's investigators said.

Robert Lombardo, 46, of Leesville, La., faces two counts of second-degree murder after deputies discovered the bodies of his 83-year-old father and 60-year-old stepmother in their home when a family member notified authorities that Lombardo had said "he had beaten his parents to death."

Jamilla Hall, who once worked for the Florida Prepaid College Program, has been sentenced to two years and nine months in federal prison for stealing about $42,000 from people who had been paying into the system.

Katsiaryna Bakhvalava, 27, and Daria Chultsova, 23, journalists with Polish-funded Belsat TV, were convicted of violating public order and sentenced to two years in prison for covering a public protest against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

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In the news - Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Its starting over, Mr. Harrison said in an interview, noting that conservative radio consumers can simply switch to other popular Limbaugh-like hosts, including Mr. Hannity, Glenn Beck and Mark Levin. (iHeartMedia might not mind: It also syndicates Mr. Beck and Mr. Hannity.)

Mr. Limbaughs success may have ensured his shows eventual obsolescence.

He was the first conservative icon in national media, bringing an ideology more closely associated with elite organs like National Review to a mass audience. His shock-jock antics infuriated Democratic presidents and endeared himself to Republican ones; as early as 1992, President George Bush invited him to spend a night in the Lincoln Bedroom.

Before Fox News and the MAGA internet, Mr. Limbaughs program was the only megaphone for his divisive, hyperpartisan brand of commentary. Theres something magical about the intimacy of radio that younger readers simply cannot possibly appreciate, the commentator Matt Lewis wrote in The Daily Beast after Mr. Limbaughs death, echoing other conservatives who reminisced about childhood listening sessions.

There is no doubt his show remained influential with the Slightly Less Online set, particularly among working-class listeners whose jobs might not afford nonstop access to a social media platform during the business day. Mr. Limbaugh even scored some headlines in December when he mused that the nation might be trending toward secession.

But Mr. Limbaughs latter-day commentary while still ribald and unrepentant was often indistinguishable from that of dozens of other pundits.

He created the genre, which then flooded the market with competitors, some less talented, some more, said Ann Coulter, the conservative provocateur. Only one person can be the pioneer but after that, its dog-eat-dog. (Even Fox News, which long enjoyed a monopoly on conservative TV, has now been forced to contend with upstart rivals, like Newsmax, that appeal to far-right viewers.)

Because he depended on a publicly traded conglomerate for his paycheck, Mr. Limbaugh was also beholden to the kinds of corporate guidelines that fringier online platforms could happily ignore. After the election, Mr. Limbaugh defended President Trumps lies about voter fraud and as late as Inauguration Day insisted that Joseph R. Biden Jr. didnt win this thing fair and square but he stopped short of explicitly calling for violence. It was a guest on The Alex Jones Show who explicitly called for supporters to occupy the Capitol.

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Where Will Rush Limbaughs 15 Million Listeners Go Now? - The New York Times