Taylor Miller / Andrew Richard / BuzzFeed

Priyanka Chopra is already a Bollywood icon, and now she's made a name for herself in the U.S. playing badass Alex Parrish on the FBI-inspired show Quantico. But aside from being an incredibly talented actress, she's also an animal lover. And because animals make everything better, we recently had the actress stop by BuzzFeed New York to answer everything you've always wanted to know while cuddling a bunch of rescue puppies.

As if Priyanka + puppies wasn't adorable enough, she ended up adopting one of the lucky pups right after our shoot, and we're still not over it. Watch it all go down in the video below, and read on for more!

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1. You've been in the FBI and now CIA, so what is next for Alex in Quantico? — @Mithu2010

Priyanka Chopra: God, even I don’t know. No one knows what’s next in Quantico or what happens in any episode or what happens to Alex. But I’m hoping that, you know, she continues to keep kicking ass because that’s my favorite part of playing Alex, the fact that she thinks on her feet, she’s a smart girl. She’s not someone who, you know, comprises her values — I love that about her. So I hope there’s more of that.

2. Where do you think you would prefer working in real life, the FBI or the CIA? — @Mithu2010

PC: Oh god, neither. I’m gonna get serious for a minute. We watch it so much on television that people think it’s a really easy job — my dad was in the Army, my mom was in the Army. It takes so much courage to be law enforcement. To be in places that people are running away from, you’re running inside that. And we take it for granted completely. But I’ve seen that in my family, and I don’t think I have the courage to do it, honestly. So I’m glad I get to pretend to be one at least on TV!

3. Do you have a fun memory to share with us from the Baywatch set? — @Thea_sherin

PC: Baywatch for me was a major in and out, because I was shooting Quantico and Baywatch like everything together. And I think that the best part about Baywatch, because we were shooting in Montreal, [was when] we would come to Miami or Savannah to shoot. Me and my assistant Jenna, we would just run into the ocean as soon as we walked into Miami. And it was the best part about shooting Baywatch, being on the beach all the time. As much as my character doesn’t like the beach, I love it.

4. Who was more mischievous on set, The Rock or Zac Efron? — @Mithu2010

BuzzFeed

PC: Definitely Zac. Dwayne is just, he’s such a gentleman, so well-behaved. And just really, really nice. Mmm, Zac, well...[laughs]. It was a lot of fun because between Zac, Alex, Ilfie, Jon, and the rest of the cast, we all would hangout in one of their trailers and just, like, order food. They’re completely different people, but both just so sweet and really nice.

5. Will you be doing a Bollywood or Hollywood project next year during your break from Quantico? — @Mithu2010

PC: I do intend to. I don’t know whether it will be a Hindi film or an english movie yet, I just know that I’m in the middle of assessing films from both here and there. I’ll definitely be doing a movie, I just don’t know which one it will be.

6. What's the first thing you do when you go back home to Mumbai? — @ms_slaysalot

PC: The first thing I do is I go to my mom’s house and just lay on her bed and tell her what I want to eat and stay there for like three days with my family, and my friends come and visit. I haven’t been home for so long that I think that’s what I miss most, my house.

7. If you were to take, let's say, one of your American fans to India for 48 hours, what would you do? — @ayeepaolaaxo

PC: Well, I’d definitely take them to a film set. I think it’ll be so much fun to show, especially if we were doing a big song, you know? It’s so much fun to see whenever we do those big dance numbers because you have epic dancers and it’s a lot of work and people don’t realize that. Like the last big dance song I did was my movie Bajirao Mastani and it took us about twelve days to do one video. So it’s a lot of fun to see—whenever my friends come from abroad I definitely make sure they come on a film set, even if we’re doing scenes and stuff, it’s a different environment.

Taylor Miller / BuzzFeed

8. What street food do you miss when you are out of India? — @Tweetm3hul

PC: Pani Puri! I miss Pani Puri the most. I can’t even explain them, they’re just magic. Pani Puri is the best.

9. When can we expect your next album? — @monisha.anand3

I know, I know. I wish—I haven’t done music for so long, and I miss the studio so much. But between

and all the movies that I’m trying to do, and my production, I haven’t been back into the studio. But I’m hoping it’ll happen soon!

10. What advice do you have for girls who want to be like you in the future? — @Hazzadragmee

BuzzFeed

PC: Don’t try and be like me, try and be like you. I always wanted to be Priyanka when I grew up—I still don’t know who that is, but it’ll take you a lifetime to figure out who you are, you know? You just have to every single day identify what you like and what you don’t, who you are and what your opinion is. And don’t let anyone tell you that your dreams are not worth something, or you can’t be a certain way. Because you can be whatever you decide to be, and there are too many girls in the world who are always told that they should behave a certain way or be a certain way and that’s not right. We should all try and be how we want.

12. Priyanka, you are absolutely amazing and are breaking down so many barriers for Indians in America. I was wondering what you love most about NYC now that Quantico is filming here. — @uma.balachandran.927

PC: I’m just really happy to be in New York because I can fly back to India on a direct flight. So I go for the weekend, I go any time, and I love New York City. I think it’s like, you know, it's such a vibrant, vibrant city it has people from all over the world, and you can find anything you want in New York. There’s nothing that you won’t get here, so I love the city, I’m having a lot of fun here.

13. What's the weirdest and best thing a fan has ever done for you? — @NazibaAhmed1

PC: The weirdest was [someone writing] letters to me in blood, which was really weird. But I’m a smart girl, okay? And I got these letters every month written in blood. Both of my parents are doctors so I sent the letter to get tested to see what kind of blood it was. It was like, sheep or something. But it was the weirdest thing because it was being passed off as “I’m writing in my blood!” and stuff like that. But I have such incredible fans around the world, they make such an effort to see me, be with me, meet me, they fly across the world if they find out I’m somewhere. They’re just always so effusive with the love that they share. My encounters with my fans really warm my heart, they make me feel extremely loved.

11. What's your favorite thing to do when you have time off? — @ms_slaysalot

BuzzFeed

PC: Just vegetate. I like to grow roots where I am. Like, I won’t move even to get a bottle of water. I put like five bottles of water next to me, lots of food, watch TV, read a script. I like to do nothing.

14. What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve done? — @monisha.anand3

Every day for me is an adventure because I don’t know the people I’m gonna meet. Especially right now I mean think about it I moved across continents suddenly and I don’t know where my life is taking me because i’m not someone who makes plans. You know life throws itself at me and I just go for it.

15. If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

BuzzFeed

PC: Oh my god there’s so many good ones. Altering people’s thoughts, that would be powerful.

16. Where do you draw your strength from? How do you motivate yourself to push through obstacles? — @StacySuperDuper

PC: Oh god, everyone says they're strong. Really, you’re not. We’re all human, we’re all fragile, we all have, you know, days where you need [to cuddle puppies]. There’s an innate strength each one of us as human beings I think have inside of us, we don’t realize it. So when you’re having a terrible day and you don’t know how you're going to perform or do your best because you're just emotionally messed up, or whatever the reason might be, you have to remind yourself that you’re so lucky to be living the way we are, we’re so lucky. At least for me, I’m so lucky to have the job that I have, and to be able to live the life that I do. And I’m blessed for it. And if I wasn’t doing it someone else would, so I just get out there and do what I have to do.

17. Besides Quantico, which TV show are you obsessed with these days? — @xojazzz

PC: I’m glad the world is obsessed with Quantico, I don’t really watch it every night [laughs]. But I like watching quintessential TV, so let’s see, what have I been watching...I love Devious Maids, Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal. I just like TV, TV. I’m not someone who looks for art in my TV.

Taylor Miller / BuzzFeed

18. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? — @vibhanshud

PC: Check my phone like all of us do! Um, have a cup of coffee, just a very strong espresso, and check my phone and see what’s happening in the world.

19. What is the best advice you've been given? — @SalmansWorld

PC: Hm, people give people so much advice all the time. I don’t know, I think I’ve sort of decided that it’s very important for people to figure out what their lives are by themselves, and I think the one advice that has stuck to me for a very long time is "live and let live." You know, we judge people too much, and we always have an opinion of what someone’s doing and why they’re doing it and if they should be or shouldn’t be doing it, and who is anyone to say what anyone else should do? So live and let live, I love that.

20. How does it feel to be the role model to so many women across the globe? — @desiavan

The way I see it, I don’t wake up every morning and say that I want to be a role model. I’m just being a girl, just me, and I think I’m really grateful that people look up to me or see me in that position. But I think what’s most important is anyone can be a role model, you don’t have to be a celebrity or public person. I think a role model is someone that people look up to and I’m really glad I’ve been able to do things where people look up to me like that, but that wasn’t the intention, so thank you!

21. What would you like to do in 2017 that you haven’t been able to do this year? — @Saraaa8

BuzzFeed

PC: Adopt a puppy! I’ve been waiting to get a puppy because my dog is a Cocker Spaniel and he’s back home in Mumbai with my mom and I really, really miss him. But he’s really old, he can’t travel now. So yeah, that’s definitely something I've been wanting to do for awhile so this is just really appropriate.

22. Who is the most influential person to you? — @RealSmartyRahul

PC: My mom. My dad and my mom. I’ve been very influenced by my parents, but since my dad passed, my mother.

Be sure to catch Priyanka Chopra in Quantico every Sunday at 10 p.m. ET on ABC. And to adopt an adorable pup like Priyanka did, head to North Shore Animal League for more info!

Taylor Miller / BuzzFeed

Australian TV news channel 7News Queensland gave the world a thing of beauty yesterday.

7News

Between all the politics and fake news and alt-right trolling, the team at 7News came together to produce perhaps the greatest 35-second news story of the year.

And it's all about muesli bars.

Here's the report, in all of its glory. Please sit down, take a breath in and then take a breath out. Then, press play.

Incredible, isn't it? Everything from the lead in, which begins "well how many of us really take notice of used by dates when it comes to snacks?" to the troubled narration of mother Lisa Sargent: "I went like this ... I looked down and suddenly, I saw, the outline... of a muesli bar."

ALSO, TO TOP IT ALL OFF, THE HUSBAND ATE IT. WHICH IS MARVELLOUS,

7 News

People were, understandably, impressed.

However, some NEGATIVE NANCYS did decide to critique the newsworthy-ness of the old muesli bar story.

On Facebook, the video has over 250,000 views. And deservedly so. 2016: not all bad.

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Just your regular Thanksgiving favorites, like John Candy-ed yams and a shoebox full of twizzlers.

In this Saturday Night Live sketch that was cut from the show for time, Kristen Wiig shares some of her favorite Thanksgiving foods, and things get pretty strange.

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It all starts out like a totally fine and normal Thanksgiving food show.

NBC / Via youtube.com

Wiig sprinkles in a little deadpan humor about her "homemade" dinner rolls.

NBC / Via youtube.com

And then, the delicious puns begin. Like this yummy tribute to John Candy.

"Now we're having fun."

NBC / Via youtube.com

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Lemon or lime?

*Facepalms*

During the 1940s, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were relocated by the US to internment camps during World War II.

During World War II, the United States detained more than 110,000 Japanese Americans, regardless of their citizenship, and relocated them to one of 10 designated internment camps for the duration of the war. It is considered one of the largest violations of civil liberties in the nation, and in 1988, Congress issued a formal apology and offered restitution to the survivors and their families.

Here's a chilling look back of that period:

A US flag flies at a Japanese-American internment camp, which is surrounded by mountains in Manzanar, California, during World War II in July 1942.

Hulton Archive / Getty Images

Mrs. Shigeho Kitamoto and her children are evacuated along with other Japanese from Bainbridge Island in Washington State, on Mar. 30, 1942. Corporal George Bushy, member of the military guard which supervised the departure of 237 Japanese for California, gives her a hand with the youngest.

/ AP

A large sign reading "I am an American" is placed in the window of a store in Oakland, California in March 1942. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas. The owner, a University of California graduate, was to be housed with hundreds of evacuees in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration of the war.

Library of Congress

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“I can’t believe he’s still talking… This nigga crazy.”

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Truth is stranger than fiction.

ICYMI, Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was released this week, introducing a bunch of magical creatures, including Niffler.

Warner Bros

Niffler is a cute thief obsessed with shiny treasure who steals the movie. "Fluffy, black, and long-snouted, this burrowing creature has a predilection for anything glittery," wrote J.K. Rowling, in the book the film is based on.

Warner Bros

Also this week, Sydney's Taronga Zoo celebrated its first short-beaked echidna births in 29 years, with keepers revealing three healthy echidna puggles.

Paul Fahy / Taronga Zoo

And people immediately made the connection.

Facebook: tarongazoo

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We won’t tell anyone.

Sticking stuff up your nose.

rach_gets_healthy / Via instagram.com

Playing in the toilet.

stevegee006 / Via instagram.com

Eating your pet's food.

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Pooping in your own bath.

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When Sandow the Magnificent went backstage after a show in Washington, DC, the assembled group of senator’s wives and daughters began to tremble. Throughout his 1896 “exhibition” — a public affair, attended by hundreds, during which Sandow had displayed his formidable musculature through a series of poses and feats of strength — they’d kept their faces behind veils. Once backstage, they vowed never to reveal one another’s identities.

The women were nervous but eager, and when Sandow emerged from his ice bath and beckoned them close, wearing only a pair of tight pants, they followed his direction. He invited each woman to come up in turn to “examine” his muscles. “This at first they were loath to do,” the Washington Post reported, “touching the giant gingerly with gloved hands." One woman, practiced in the study of anatomy, began to name each muscle.

“We don’t do this often,” Flo Ziegfeld, who booked Sandow’s shows, explained. “But it’s often hard to refuse ladies. Sandow is always quite willing to oblige them.”

Today, this description could double for a group of women attending a screening of Magic Mike. And while part of the fascination with Sandow was sexual, an even larger portion derived from the spectacle of his powerfully muscled body — a rarity at the time. Sandow wasn’t the first “strongman,” but his celebrity coincided with both the rise of the moving image and continued anxiety over the effects of the industrial revolution on man’s physique and overall health.

Photos of Sandow, sold in “cabinet cards” for 35 cents, spread across the country, while a short film of him played on continuous loop in kinetoscope parlors across the globe. An exquisitely designed magazine, Sandow’s System of Physical Training, went through three printings. He was the first naked chest of the age of the moving image, and like so many naked chests over the next century, he was the right chest at the right time, a nudity that came to mean so much more than the sum of a belly button, some carefully cultivated chest hair, and pair of revealed nipples.

Look at a moment of prominent male shirtlessness and you’ll see a culture trying to sort out its “ideal” chest, but you’ll also observe standards for how men should behave and feel in public and in private, on the job and in the bedroom. When a celebrity takes off his shirt, whether it’s Marlon Brando in the '50s or Justin Bieber in the 2010s, he’s summoning ever-fluctuating currents of masculinity to the surface, to be read, appreciated, and analyzed.

Depending on the era, celebrity shirtlessness has served as an act (a declaration) and a reaction (a means of changing a pre-existing conversation). And after closely studying its public occurrence over the last century, those acts and reactions appear in cycles, like a never-ending feedback loop of naked chests. Each cycle generally starts, as with Sandow, with a declaration of masculinity against a backdrop of fear — that men, and society at large, is becoming feminized in some way. In those cases, shirtlessness provides proof of a robust, potent, masculinity. Once that anxiety is soothed, it’s countered by more emotive, vulnerable, far less terrified — even embracing — aspects of femininity. Sometime in the 1990s, that cycle explodes; as shirtlessness proliferates, its capacity to create meaning disappears.

It seems obvious that a man without a shirt in a national magazine, a widely distributed film still, or viral image on the internet is sending a message about masculinity. What’s less obvious, however, is how those messages have changed — and in an era seemingly saturated with shirtlessness, how much they communicate about the desperate need for masculinity to forcefully, aggressively, unceasingly reassert itself.

When Rudolph Valentino died — suddenly, at age 31 — thousands of women descended upon his funeral, where they provided the archetype for the screaming, overemotional, irrational female fan of the 20th century. The myth of his death has expanded to include the idea that women loved Valentino so intensely that many committed suicide after his death — and, because of that devotion, men came to despise him.

The reality of Valentino’s stardom, and how it incited both great delight and anxiety, is much more complicated — and involved, but did not start with, Valentino appearing shirtless. The Valentino that millions of women (and unheralded men) fell for was wearing a turban, his lids lined, his shirt unbuttoned in a deeply plunging V.

In 1921, Valentino played the titular role of The Sheik, a classic exotic romance with some messed-up gender politics that turned him into an overnight star. It quickly became clear that the bulk of the film’s audience was women — a point repeated in reviews, which then made (more) women go see it, more men stay away, and helped cement Valentino as an object of female desire.

Valentino wasn’t the first male idol — on stage, there had been “mashers,” or matinee idols, for decades; before Valentino, John Barrymore had earned the mantel of “The Greatest Lover Onscreen,” while Wallace Reid was venerated for his strength and handsomeness. But Valentino was more than handsome or romantic. He was sexy, in part because he was Italian — which, onscreen, meant he could play any number of exoticized Others. And while sex appeal should, in theory, make a star’s image more masculine, in Valentino’s case, it did just the opposite.

While sex appeal should, in theory, make a star's image more masculine, in Valentino's case, it did just the opposite.

The 1920s were a particularly volatile moment for representations of the male body: America was still recovering from the aftermath of World War I, which had sent back bodies and minds mangled and deformed; at the same time, the so-called “New Woman” was asserting economic and sexual freedoms. Strong, masculine bodies — like that of Douglas Fairbanks — provided a salve for those anxieties. But Valentino exacerbated them. As film historian Gaylyn Studlar points out, “American men interpreted Valentino not as an ‘athlete’ but as a ‘beauty,’ a decadent foreign specimen” who “confirmed the increasing effeminacy of men and the masculinity of women.” He was photographed in turbans and scarves; his house, photographed for the fan magazines, resembled a boudoir. He was a lover, not an action hero.

Part of the problem was Valentino’s past: He’d made his way to Hollywood by working as a “lounge lizard” and “taxi dancer” — that is, a guy who made ends meet by periodically getting paid to dance with women. That past was compounded by images of his present: Before the release of The Sheik, he had married set designer Natacha Rambova, an artist who, in addition to just generally asserting her independence, supposedly insisted that Valentino wear a gold "slave bracelet" at all times. In this light, it was easy to condemn Valentino for, as Studlar puts it, the “distinctly unmasculine goal of living off millions of female fans who packed the theaters to see him.”

This image was exacerbated in September 1922, when Valentino broke from his studio over artistic control, pay, and say over his future roles. What could have been construed as a masculine break from the machinery of the industry was instead viewed as Rambova controlling influence. Valentino sued for breach of contract; the studio won an injunction that prevented him from being onscreen. Cue: shirtlessness.

How to Keep Fit

Via archive.org

How You Can Keep Fit is essentially the 1923 version of Men’s Health. It was published by Macfadden Publications, which started in 1899 when Bernar Macfadden launched Physical Culture, a Sandow-like how-to magazine that combined tips for fitness, diet, and wellness. Much of the copy reads like any other self-help physical culture pamphlet, with phrases like “The man who is indifferent to his physical health is like a musical instrument that is out of tune” and “Keeping fit is the first law of a successful life." But it also works to frame Valentino and his work on the screen as labor: “It is very obvious that motion picture work requires the highest degree of physical vigor and athletic fitness,” Valentino writes.

But, he was still posing for photos — a pin-up — which, as culture scholar Richard Dyer points out, invokes the dynamic of the (active) looker and the (passive) subject. As a result, many male subjects — especially those for whom masculinity is in question — have attempted to diffuse the connotation of passivity by doing something in photos of them.

The vast majority of images thus depict Valentino in motion, in action, in control. But others, like this one (ostensibly of his back, highlighting the whole of his well-toned backside) feel like a pinup.

Sandow, on the left; Valentino, from How to Keep Fit, on the right

Library of Congress

Contrast it with a similar photo of Sandow: Neither are action shots, but in both, the muscles are flexed, highlighting the bodies’ potential for action. Sandow, however, appears like a piece of chiseled marble, an exemplar of the masculine form. By contrast, the image of Valentino is lit in a soft, romantic manner; his skin seems warm and glistening. He’s wearing more clothing than Sandow, yet somehow still seems more sexual.

Ultimately, Valentino’s re-masculating project in How to Be Fit fell apart under the heft of its purpose. The same thing happened with Monsieur Beaucaire, Valentino’s first onscreen appearance after his break with his studio, in which he plays a (periodically shirtless) member of French nobility, but spends the duration of the film in a wig, makeup, and very tight and lacy costumes. It happened yet again in the aftermath of the so-called “Pink Powder Puff Attack,” in which an anonymous Chicago Tribune writer, having found a “powder puff” dispensary in the men’s bathroom, penned an editorial decrying the increased use of makeup by men — which he attributed to Valentino. “It is time for matriarchy if the male of the species allows such things to persist,” the author exclaimed. “Better a rule by masculine women than by effeminate men.”

Monsieur Beaucaire, Rudolph Valentino, 1924

Courtesy Everett Collection

A furious Valentino challenged the unnamed author to a boxing match. The author failed to present himself, but Valentino publicized his training for the match, and was photographed, shirtless, in the ring. With no competitor, he boxed against journalist Frank O’Neill; in the weeks to come, he would celebrate his quasi-victory by appearing in various bars and restaurants, where he attempted to further demonstrate his masculine mettle at drinking, before falling suddenly ill and succumbing, at the age of 31, to complications resulting from severe gastric ulcers.

The masses of women crowding the streets of New York followed, and so too did the Valentino legend: of a man beloved by women, but also of one brought asunder by his attempts — many of them bare chested — to confirm his masculinity. That image would hover over the next 20 years of Hollywood, as dozens of swarthy male stars were introduced to the public with the question, "Is he the next Valentino?"

It was simple for the gossip press to declare Clark Gable, who first entered the studio system in the early ‘30s, as the heir to Valentino: A 1931 column wondered “Have the movies found, in Clark Gable, another Valentino? Every time Gable appears on the screen, an electric shock runs through all the female hearts for miles around.”

Like Valentino, Gable was framed as an object of girlish adoration: a piece in New Movie Magazine declared “outside of Valentino, no star but Clark Gable ... has appealed to so many women.” But even as the studios planted stories of his ability to attract women, they also labored to assure readers that men also loved him. “I have never heard a man say he did not like Clark Gable,” a three-page spread in Movie Classic proclaimed. “He may be the king of Great Lovers to the women, but he is also Hollywood’s most doughty and popular he-man!”

Just years after his death, Valentino had become one of the most iconic and beloved stars of Hollywood — but no studio or star wanted to reproduce his deeply feminized image.

Instead, the reliance on shirtlessness returned. For Gable, it shows up about halfway through It Happened One Night — a film that would go on to sweep the Academy Awards and launch him to stardom. In the scene, Gable and the bashful, proper Claudette Colbert are forced to share a hotel room, where he offers a monologue about undressing while undressing himself. The scene flips the usual norms of the gaze of cinema, which was succinctly described by art historian John Berger as “Men watch. Women watch themselves being watched.” In this scene, the audience watches as Gable himself is watched, quite closely, by Colbert’s assessing eye.

Via Columbia Pictures

Most of the incidents of filmic shirtlessness to that point had been utilitarian: a man in action, sporting, or swimming. But here was a modern man disrobing in front of a modern woman in a hotel room. Any potential feminization is undercut, however, by Gable’s broad shoulders and deep, booming voice — the sort that Valentino, who’d only appeared in silent films, could never use to declare his manliness. Gable had a swarthiness to him, but he was born in Ohio, not Italy: There was none of the feminized ethnic Other in him. Instead, he could be purely masculine — as Movie Classic declared, “Men sense sincerity in Clark Gable, a real interest and liking for the things that are men’s things.”

After It Happened One Night, no one dared call Gable a second coming of Valentino. From then on, fan magazine writers would compare new and upcoming stars to Gable himself. According to Hollywood lore, Gable’s lack of undershirt in the scene — an anomaly at the time — resulted in sales of undershirts plummeting 75%. This figure has no source, but the extent to which it has been repeated speaks to just how iconic the scene became.

Gable’s unrepentant masculinity in film became the cornerstone of his image — cemented, five years later, with his turn in Gone With the Wind and his service in the Air Force during World War II. Yet after the end of the war, Gable and the other aging greats of classic Hollywood would struggle to maintain their box office clout as a wholly different mode of acting, and emotive masculinity, came to the fore.

Courtesy Everett Collection

There were plenty of men who took off their shirts onscreen between Gable and Brando, but once you watch Brando do it in A Streetcar Named Desire, it’s difficult to keep them in mind. The high-waisted trousers, the broad shoulders, the wisps of chest hair — it’s all similar to Gable in It Happened One Night. But when Gable took off his (pressed, dress) shirt, it was done methodically — a businessman taking off his clothes before bed. By contrast, Brando’s shirt is stained with sweat and filth. He asks Vivian Leigh if she’s alright with him “getting comfortable” as his shirt sticks to him in the Southern heat. She turns away, but peeks back around after he’s flung his shirt away. The camera joins Leigh in lingering over his shirtless chest, his bulging biceps.

Brando had cultivated his body with this specific look in mind, working out daily at the gym to cultivate the physique that would best match the combustive masculinity of Stanley. Costume designer Lucinda Ballard shrunk Brando’s white T-shirts to fit tightly around his biceps — a dramatically different look than the loose-fitting white T-shirts most men wore, which extended nearly to the elbow. She also tailored his jeans while they were wet, pinning them especially close in his groin and ass area. Brando, for his part, refused to wear underwear. When he saw the completed look, he purportedly shouted, “This is it! This is what I’ve always wanted!”

Brando’s Streetcar physique was highlighted in various shades of undress in Julius Caesar and Viva Zapata!, but even when he remains fully clothed — as he did in both The Wild One and On the Waterfront — the memory of shirtlessness seeps through. There’s something different about the way the camera lingers on his body, similar to the way it lingered on Paul Newman’s body in The Long, Hot Summer. It feels shameless, in a way. This sort of shirtlessness wasn’t a momentary spectacle, but something around which entire narratives bended.

Paul Newman, shirtless

Bettmann / Bettmann Archive

It’s the most wonderful time of the year but also the worst.

The Christmas period often means a break in your usual routine. Perhaps you're off from school or work and some of you will have to return home when you might be more comfortable somewhere else.

unsplash.com

For some, Christmas brings back uncomfortable memories or even trauma.

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Christmas is also largely about food and drinking, which is tricky for a lot of us.

Svetikd / Getty Images

But there are small steps to make Christmas manageable. Do you have any tips for getting out of your head? And how do you look after yourself?

Maggy van Eijk

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Because coming out to grandma over turkey isn’t easy.

Heading home for the holidays to see friends and family can be a really exciting time — but for some in the LGBT community, it can be straight up stressful.

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Whether you're wondering about come out to your grandparents or you're worried about bringing home a significant other for the first time — she's got answers.

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Remember, the holiday season is supposed to be all about celebration and relaxation — so if the family you were born into isn’t providing that for you?

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“No to hate, yes to pancakes.”

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WHAT SORCERY!?

Reddit user moniquey created the most amazing lewk by dyeing her hair two distinct shades and giving herself a severe part.

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The secret to pulling off the two-tone trick is parting your hair just right. As you can see right here, without the perfect part, you can clearly see the two different dyes.

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How effing cool is that?

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It’s pretty bad.

The soccer player was mere inches from the goal line, with no goalkeeper or defense in sight, and somehow managed to knock the ball over the goal.

Twitter: @_AndyHa

I mean...

Twitter: @_AndyHa

There's really no other way to put it...

Twitter: @_AndyHa

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Knowledge is sexy.

Spoiler: She REALLY likes Bill Murray.

We sat down with Charli XCX while she was in Australia to find out some things we didn't know about the British singer and all-round legend.

Instagram: @charli_xcx

She once had to break into her own dressing room during an awards show.

"I was at the American Music Awards a couple of years ago and we got locked out of our trailer, our dressing room," Charli told BuzzFeed. "Nobody would open the door so we had to crawl through the roof. It was me, my stylist, and my manager crawling through a small hole which was pretty weird."

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In her opinion, the best awards show to attend are the NME Awards because everyone gets "truly fucked up".

"The NME Awards are like a rock music magazine in the UK. They serve pizza at 2am and everybody gets truly fucked up which is really fun; big party vibes."

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Someone once threw a gun under her tour bus, turning it into a crime scene.

"There was a gun thrown underneath my tour bus in Toronto. We were on stage and then we came out and there had been a shooting. The person who had done the shooting threw the gun underneath the bus to try and hide it, so it became a crime scene. It was nothing to do with us, it was just weird."

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“I really feel for that iguana in Planet Earth 2. Being born and almost instantly chased by snakes is very relatable content.”

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Not even close.

A group of guys from Los Angeles have sued Chipotle after they realized that a carnitas burrito was not actually 300 calories.

Instagram: @chipotlemexicangrill

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday, names three men as plaintiffs and is a proposed class action, City News Service reported.

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The lawsuit claims that the Mexican food chain lures customers "into a false belief that the items they are eating are healthier than they really are," according to City News Service.

It says the chain does so by advertising calorie counts under its chorizo burritos.

The menu states that the meat inside the burrito contains 300 calories, however, customers could be easily duped into thinking that count is referring to the entire burrito, the lawsuit states.

One such alleged swindled customer is plaintiff David Desmond. He claims he ordered the chorizo burrito thinking he was choosing a low-calorie meal, but soon made a horrible discovery, City News Service reported.

Instagram: @chipotlemexicangrill

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Ah, 2016.

That was the year of the nationwide dumpster fire, we’ll tell our grandchildren one day. The year the Warriors blew a 3–1 lead in the finals. The year we lost David Bowie, Prince, and Vine. The year a man successfully campaigned on racism, misogyny, and anti-immigrant sentiment all the way to the highest office in the land.

Things have felt confusing, scary, and downright dystopian in the two weeks since the election. Projections about the future make me feel like I’m living inside hastily written chapters from a rejected Margaret Atwood novel (“a little heavy-handed with the metaphors, don’t you think?”).

There’s a whole lot of terrifying (and fake!) news out there. There’s been an alarming resurgence of hate crimes against people of various backgrounds, with no sign of slowing down anytime soon. With so much happening so fast, it’s hard for anyone to know what to do except lie in bed crying and making memes. But chances are, if you’re white and you’re feeling overwhelmed right now, the people of color in your life are dealing with even more compounded forms of stress and straight-up fear — and for good reason.

When the news of Donald Trump winning the election first started to pour in, my phone became a life raft. Texts and calls and DMs and emails from other people of color rolled in urgently, each one bleeding into the next for days on end: “Are you alone? Are you okay? Are we okay? I love you. I saw this coming, but I’m scared. We will keep going. We have to keep going.” We held each other because we had to. Because we have to.

But the sparse messages from white friends were less steady, more unsure: “How could this have happened?” and “I don’t know what to do” flanked each “How are you?” The requests came soon after, the way they often do. “How do I fix this? What do we — white people — do?”

Exhausted and overwhelmed, I didn’t have answers at first. I needed rest before I could respond. Before I could teach, before I could reach back into my experiences organizing on campus and beyond to do this newly urgent work. But now, two weeks and several terrifying cabinet appointments later, I want to help teach them how to build us all a raft. Show them how to be the most helpful friends they can during these ominous times. So I pulled together this very nonexhaustive list of ways to help. We’ve entered a new storm, but lessons from the past can still guide us. Here’s a start.

1. Don’t ask your friends — or random internet acquaintances — of color to #process everything with you.

Emotional labor is exhausting, and people of color are already carrying the burden of existing as targets in this openly hostile terrain. The last thing we are equipped to do under duress is take on the weight of your anxieties too. If your first temptation is to text a black friend about your own fear, you’re probably contributing to that load — even if it’s not intentional.

Find other outlets to explore what you’re feeling. Reach out to other white people to have those conversations, write in a journal or blog, or talk to a mental health professional if you’re able to. People of color can’t be your de facto therapists whenever something scary happens, especially when we’re the ones directly in harm’s way.

2. If you want to reach out to your friends of color to ask about how they’re feeling, don’t force a conversation.

Again, having emotionally fraught conversations can be draining. So if you want to check in on your friends or co-workers, send a simple but supportive message that doesn’t require them to respond back with a paragraph. I’ve found that messages like “I know you are probably dealing with a lot right now, but I just wanted you to know that I’m here if it’d help you to talk with someone” can mean the world. They convey your desire to be there — without putting the onus on the recipient to stop what they’re doing and engage you.

Have you ever had a day when texting back or even getting out of bed feels like a task hard enough for the final level of a video game? We get those too. And in the coming years, as news and events continue to underscore just how much danger we’re in, there will probably be even more days like this. So don’t take it personally if a friend doesn’t immediately respond to your reaching out; sometimes the best way to support someone is to give them space.

3. Invest your energy into having difficult conversations with white people around you.

Ask open-ended questions about race and stereotypes. Feel free to share how your own thought process has evolved and why; admit to not having all the answers. Be frank when someone says something fucked up. You have far more leverage with other white people than people of color do.

Here’s a bit more on that, from episode 4 of BuzzFeed's See Something Say Something podcast:

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3a. Especially your family members!

Holiday conversations can be especially difficult, but don’t avoid your “racist uncle” because it’s easier than challenging his views. Again, you have far more leverage with him than any person of color would. Avoiding difficult discussions about race is a luxury we don’t have.

Last year, BuzzFeed’s own audio wiz Meg Cramer stepped into the Another Round studio to share an open letter to other white folks on how to be better allies. Here’s part of what she said:

Another Round

And if they aren’t getting it in your conversation, feel free to send this flowchart their way. If they insist on talking specifically about Trump, here are some conversation points you could try incorporating.

4. Amplify the work and words of the most marginalized people.

People in power get cited as experts on marginalized people’s experiences because they’re considered “unbiased.” You can help push back against this faulty paradigm by insisting marginalized people are the experts on their own lives and the -isms that affect them.

Get into the habit of sharing articles and essays and poetry and art by people of color. Buy their books. Link to them on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr. Email their work to your relatives. Use your platform to make sure their thoughts and perspectives and ideas and analyses reach audiences who might not have had access to them otherwise. It’s strategic and also just intellectually honest (after all, you didn’t just wake up one morning with fully developed racial justice analysis).

Looking for some reading lists to start with? Here are some on black feminism, intersectionality, anti-Islamophobia, supporting immigrants, thinking about alternatives to policing and community accountability, and perspectives from queer and trans people of color.

5. Intervene when you see harassment happening.

People in dangerous situations probably aren’t safe enough to casually scan their surroundings and take note of who’s wearing a safety pin. If you see someone targeting another person with any version of racist, sexist, anti-Muslim, or anti-queer aggression, quickly evaluate the situation. Aggressors are far more likely to back down if the person intervening is someone they see as equal, so if you’re white, a person shouting racist slurs at someone else would take your “Hey, stop that” far more seriously than a black person’s. It’s unfortunate, but it’s real.

Use your voice in these moments. Intervene calmly, with words that help deescalate the situation. Things like “Hey, that’s not cool” work surprisingly well. You can check this guide out for more resources on de-escalation. This works online, too. Sites like Twitter can be hotbeds of harassment for marginalized people. But when white people, especially men, interrupt to tell harassers their behavior is unacceptable, they are far more likely to stop their abuse.

6. If you’re going to engage the country’s ongoing protests, do so responsibly.

If you’ve never been to a protest or rally before, it’s easy to get swept up in the energy of the moment. People march, yell, and express their deeply held frustrations. They cry, laugh, and hold one another. Frequently, police show up and situations can escalate quickly.

It’s important to be aware of how you navigate these spaces if you choose to go. Are you being loud and disrespectful toward police? That might agitate them — and people of color are the ones who most often bear the brunt of the ensuing violence. However, in situations where police are targeting people of color, place yourself between the parties or make it clear that you are recording the encounter. Because police are less likely to do you harm, this can de-escalate the situation. I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes.

Stick to following the cues of those most vulnerable, and don’t try to make the action about you. Are you speaking over the people of color? Are you participating in chants that don’t apply to you, like “I can’t breathe”? These actions can make protests feel actively unsafe for people of color. Remember that you are there to be supportive, and your actions should reflect it.

7. Get involved for the long haul.

If you have access to financial resources, give to anti-bigotry organizations that will undoubtedly need to scale up their efforts in the coming months and years. I don’t want to officially endorse charities, but Jezebel published a list of some larger national organizations, and organizers in Los Angeles compiled another list, focused on smaller community-focused groups to consider. Set up recurring donations. Encourage your family and friends with access to wealth to do so too.

Consider volunteering with service-based organizations and lending your labor to advocacy groups. Do you have valuable skills, like copywriting or graphic design? Offer to help a local organization with their communications or administrative work; if your skills can be taught to other volunteers, consider offering to host a skill-share workshop so that the knowledge ripples beyond you. Do you have social capital? Ask your highly connected friends and family to consider stepping up in these ways as well. Do you have access to event space? Open it up to organizing groups who need meeting places.

Show up and show out for the 2018 midterm elections. Volunteer beforehand to get out the vote in your network and in your area. Report voter intimidation. Get involved and informed at the local level, and help ensure others have access to that knowledge too.

Ask people what they need.

8. Remember to stay vigilant (and patient).

Allyship isn’t a static label; it’s a series of actions, an investment. You should be doing this work because you care, because it will help move us all toward a more just world, because it will help save lives. Please don’t expect people of color to continually reward you for caring (remember that emotional labor thing?). Be humble, not defensive, when you are called out. Be patient, compassionate, and kind. We have so much work in the years ahead. But here’s to surviving them together.