Earlier this year, Louis C.K. proved his own “cancellation” was a myth when his big comeback special Sincerely Louis C.K. not only landed a nomination but went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.

Don’t be surprised if Dave Chappelle pulls off a similar trick at the Emmys.

Now, to be fair, hateful speech is not the same as C.K.’s abusive behavior, but it now feels inevitable that Chappelle’s controversial Netflix special The Closer will be rewarded by the Television Academy when nominations are announced this Tuesday.

In addition to Chappelle’s Netflix special, the nominations for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) are expected to include some non-comedy entries as well, including Adele’s One Night Only concert and a similarly problematic Harry Potter 20th anniversary reunion on HBO Max. But it is comedy—and Chappelle, specifically—that have dominated the category in recent years. The comedian’s previous Netflix specials Equanimity, in which he defended Louis C.K., and Stick and Stones, in which he mocked Michael Jackson’s accusers, won the award in 2018 and 2020, respectively.

If The Closer is included among the nominees, it will be despite immense backlash against the transphobic jokes at its center—and the comedian’s continued obsession with that topic. Even after he was attacked on stage at the Hollywood Bowl, Chappelle quickly joked that the assailant must have been a “trans man.” More recently, he assailed students who criticized him as “instruments of oppression.”

But it will also come at a time when Chappelle—much more so than Louis C.K.—has maintained the support of the comedy community, speaking on behalf of his friend Jon Stewart at the recent Mark Twain Prize ceremony—an honor he received himself in 2019—and making a surprise appearance on one of John Mulaney’s summer tour stops that drew criticism from fans who felt bombarded by his anti-LGBTQ+ jokes.

So ahead of the nomination announcement this week, here are five comedy specials that deserve a spot over The Closer.

Jerrod Carmichael — Rothaniel

Of all the specials on this list, Carmichael’s game-changing hour is (hopefully) the most likely to make it into the final crop of nominees. Directed by his frequent collaborator—and the man who should have won last year’s award in this category—Bo Burnham, Rothaniel is a sneakily hilarious and moving set that promises to uncover multiple secrets about Carmichael and delivers. Coming out as a gay man is among the least surprising things the comedian reveals about himself over the course of the laid-back hour, which evolves into a sort of public therapy session with the hyper-engaged audience.

Moses Storm — Trash White

When comedian Moses Storm dropped by The Last Laugh podcast back in January, I called his HBO Max special Trash White the first great stand-up special of 2022. Not only is it visually dazzling with a set made out of literal white trash, but Storm has a hell of a story to tell about growing up in a doomsday cult and reckoning with how that unconventional childhood has impacted his ability to exist as an adult in the world. And on top of that, it includes a beautifully rendered, inadvertent tribute to the late Bob Saget, who played a surprisingly big role in Storm’s upbringing.

Ronny Chieng — Speakeasy

Speakeasy, gorgeously filmed in New York’s Chinatown, is The Daily Show correspondent Ronny Chieng’s excellent follow-up to 2019’s equally hilarious ​​Asian Comedian Destroys America! Instead of complaining about “cancel culture,” Chieng flips the script by daring viewers to “cancel” him so he can stop being so successful, go back home to Singapore and see his mother for the first time in several years. “If you commit a crime, you go to jail. That’s not cancel culture, that’s a felony,” he told me earlier this year. “So when I did that bit, I was making fun of the ‘woke’ Twitter people who try to cancel everybody. And then I was making fun of the right-wing, who think that cancel culture is all-powerful.”

Taylor Tomlinson — Look at You

In her debut Netflix special Quarter-Life Crisis, Taylor Tomlinson broke through the noise and quickly established herself as one of the most confident young stand-up comedians in the game. Her 2022 follow-up Look at You proved it wasn’t a fluke. Now, at just 28 years old, she has already achieved her wildest comedy dreams, culminating with her first big theater tour this fall. The Emmys will presumably have many more opportunities to honor Tomlinson down the line, but they might as well start now. Her bit comparing imbalanced couples to chocolate-covered raisins alone deserves some sort of award.

Roy Wood Jr. — Imperfect Messenger

If you want to see what true stand-up comedy excellence looks like, few can top another Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood Jr., who has been at it for more than two decades and just gets better with every special he puts out. For evidence of his mastery, look no further than the long run about how Leonardo DiCaprio’s role as an evil slaver in Django Unchained makes him an “underrated white ally.” But that joke is just one of many in Comedy Central’s Imperfect Messenger that intelligently takes on relevant issues in the culture without punching down or pissing off entire groups of marginalized people.

Bonus: Naomi Ekperigin on The Standups and River Butcher’s A Different Kind of Dude

So, these two are kind of a cheat because, as part of Netflix’s The Standups and Comedy Central’s Stand-Up Presenting series, respectively, the half-hour specials from Naomi Ekperigin and River Butcher don’t exactly qualify for this category at the Emmys. But I would put both sets up there with any of the hour-long specials released by more seasoned comics over the past year. Each comedian uses their 30 minutes to introduce themselves to the world in very different ways. By the time they inevitably land their own hours, they will no doubt both deserve to be in the Emmy conversation for real.

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For those looking for a cute and magical romance, Carry On by Rainbow Rowell is perfect for the magically inclined.

This YA novel is the story of the worst ever “chosen one,” Simon Snow, a student at the Watford School of Magicks, who is having a rough time figuring out being a wizard and falling in love.

The book is a love story with ghosts, mystery, and magic, few other queer novels conjure more magic.

Get it from Bookshop or your local bookstore via Indiebound.

Hasbro puts a magical spin on its classic whodunit game with Clue: Wizarding World Harry Potter Edition Mystery Board Game. The thrilling wizarding twist in this Amazon exclusive edition finds players moving around the board as Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, or Neville. Players try to figure out who disappeared, under which spell, and where the crime occurred. The artwork is stunning—and the coolest part—the game board reveals changing staircases, forbidden doors, secret passages, and more. WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD. Small parts – not for children under 3.

Warner Bros. said it has removed references to a gay relationship between two protagonists in the upcoming China release of a “Harry Potter” prequel.

The Hollywood studio confirmed that it has expunged details of the romance between Jude Law’s character, Albus Dumbledore, and Gellert Grindelwald, played by Mads Mikkelsen, in “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.”

The edit, which was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, takes out six seconds of the film in which Dumbledore utters the lines “I was in love with you” and “the summer Gellert and I fell in love.”

The film’s total run time is 143 minutes.

“As a studio, we’re committed to safeguarding the integrity of every film we release, and that extends to circumstances that necessitate making nuanced cuts in order to respond sensitively to a variety of in-market factors,” a Warner Bros. spokesperson told THR.

“Our hope is to release our features worldwide as released by their creators but historically we have faced small edits made in local markets.”

The spokesperson added: “In the case of ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,’ a six-second cut was requested and Warner Bros. accepted those changes to comply with local requirements but the spirit of the film remains intact.”

“We want audiences everywhere in the world to see and enjoy this film, and it’s important to us that Chinese audiences have the opportunity to experience it as well, even with these minor edits.”

Warner Bros. is raking in the cash at the box office in China. The film was the most watched in the country during opening weekend, pulling in $9.7 million — a figure that would have been larger notwithstanding COVID-19-induced lockdowns.

J.K. Rowling, the author of the “Harry Potter” series, first revealed that the two characters were gay during a 2007 fan event promoting the book “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”

This is the first time that the relationship has been explicitly referred to in a film. “Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore” is scheduled to open in the United States this week.

Hollywood studios have been criticized for bowing to Chinese censorship demands in exchange for access to the country’s market.

The makers of big-budget films — including  “Iron Man 3,” “World War Z” and “Top Gun: Maverick”– pandered to the country’s authoritarian government by cutting characters and dialogue that aren’t pro-China, according to PEN America, a non-profit that promotes free speech.

“Mulan,” the live-action remake of the 1998 animated classic, was filmed by Disney in Xinjiang province, where the Chinese government is accused of orchestrating a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Uyghur Muslims.

Harry Potter fans were delighted after the acting trio who played the lead characters recently reunited for a 20th anniversary special, Return To Hogwarts, to mark two decades since the first film’s release.

And it seems that at least one of the leads has revealed he would be keen to reprise his role, suggesting we may see a return of the boy wizard.

Actor Rupert Grint who played Ron Weasley in the film adaptations of JK Rowling’s famous books has said he would consider reprising his role in the Harry Potte r franchise if his co-stars rejoined with him.

READ MORE:Inside Harry Potter star Rupert Grint’s £24 million property empire

Grint, now 33, rose to fame as a child, playing the role of Harry’s friend Ron alongside Daniel Radcliffe as the boy wizard and Emma Watson as Hermione Granger in the popular film series.

The trio recently reunited for a 20th anniversary special, titled Return To Hogwarts, along with other cast members to mark 20 years since the first film, Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, was released.

Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain (GMB) about the possibility of making a return to the franchise someday, Grint said: “I can’t really think of a reason not to.

“I love that character, I love that world. It’s a huge part of my life. I feel this kind of ownership of Ron in a weird way.”

Grint said he would consider taking up the role of Weasley again, but that he would like his co-stars to rejoin with him.

He also revealed he had enjoyed watching someone else take on the role in the spin-off play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, which is being staged at the Palace Theatre in London.

“I loved seeing the play, and it was a real thrill seeing someone else take that body over,” he added.

Since the last Harry Potter film Grint has gone on to appear in a string of role and is currently starring as Julian Pearce in the psychological horror TV series Servant, with series three due to be released on Friday.

He has also become a father, with his partner Georgia Groome, giving birth to their daughter, Wednesday, last year.

The Harry Potter films based on the seven books written by JK Rowling gained immense popularity after being adapted into Blockbuster movies, with other spin offs including games, stage productions and theme parks across the world.

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Then, that night, Jack’s toys wake him and explain that, on Christmas Eve, humans can enter the Land Of The Lost where there is a chance of Jack rescuing DP. The Christmas Pig, DP’s replacement, leads him there.

In the Land Of The Lost, objects from scissors and staplers to smartphones have come alive and are segregated across five nations depending on how valuable they were to their owners. Jack and the Christmas Pig travel the land on the trail of DP, from the dangerous Wastes Of The Unlamented to the idyllic Island Of The Beloved. Throughout, Jack must dodge the monstrous rulr The Loser, who gobbles up anything that breaks the rules.

For over 20 years, Albus Dumbledore has been one of the most beloved characters in J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” world but actor Jude Law, who continues to play the character in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, reveals that Dumbledore is going through “a process of regression” from the older Harry Potter stories to the new movie (in theatres Friday, April 15 in North America).

“One of the joys that David [Yates] really allowed me to investigate was, rather than feeling the weight of the brilliant performances by Michael Gambon and Richard Harris, was to really go back and understand that he’s not the fully formed Dumbledore of the Harry Potter books and films,” Law told reporters ahead of the movie’s release. “He’s a man still finding his way, still confronting and resolving his demons, and that’s what I mean by regression.”

“In this film, in particular, he’s facing the past, he’s facing himself and his own guilt. But if there were a quality that links him, I would say it’s his mischievousness, his humour, and his belief in people. He sees the positive. You think of how Dumbledore believed in Draco, he believed even in Tom Riddle, he sees the good, or the potential good, and I think that’s something that he’s always had.”

In Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, professor Dumbledore is aware that Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) is working to seize control of the wizarding world, which results in him having Magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) lead a group of wizards, witches and one Muggle baker on a mission to save not just the wizarding world, but the world without magic as well, while the number of Grindelwald followers grows.

For Law, playing Dumbledore, again but even originally, was a “no brainer” for the actor.

“I felt like I’d been in preparation, subconsciously, from the minute I started reading the books to my children and gosh, there’s just so much in the character to mine and to investigate as an actor,” Law said.

“That’s before you even get into this extraordinary world of magic, that’s just him as a human, but the magic is really fun, too.”

Eddie Redmayne, who plays Newt Scamander, describes the relationship between his character and Dumbledore as “fraternal.”

“There’s a moment in this film where, when Newt even takes it upon himself, sees the vulnerability in Dumbledore and tries to pass on a mode of wisdom to him,” Redmayne said. “But what I love about Newt is fundamentally he’s an introverted guy and is most comfortable with his creatures and in his own world, but Dumbledore has seen a quality in him that has the potential for leadership, albeit in an unconventional way.”

“What I love about this movie, it’s like a wizarding heist movie, in which this group of outsiders all band together. All of us are unconventional, the leader is unconventional and there’s a kind of wonder in that.”

No magic wand to fix ‘Fantastic Beasts’ scandals

While Harry Potter movies were exceptionally successful, it’s no secret that the Fantastic Beasts films have been riddled with controversy, including J.K. Rowling going from being a literary icon to being called out for her transphobic rhetoric.

While there had also been pushback from fans that Albus Dumbledore’s sexuality was never mentioned in the franchise, and his romantic relationship with Grindelwald. It was reported this week that Warner Bros. accepted requested changes from China to cut six seconds of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which refer to the romance between the two characters.

Scandal specific to Fantastic Beasts also includes the fall of Johnny Depp, who played Grindelwald in the first two films, but was forced to leave the franchise after he sued The Sun for libel following the tabloid calling him a “wife beater” in a 2018 article, and Depp lost the case.

“It was quite chaotic,” Mads Mikkelsen who now plays Gellert Grindelwald in the new film told The Hollywood Reporter.

“You don’t want to copy anything [Depp was] doing — that would be creative suicide… But you still have to build some sort of bridge between what came before.”

But the controversy did not stop there. Just a month ago, a day before the Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore premiere, Ezra Miller, who plays Credence Barebone, was arrested for disorderly conduct and harassment in Hawaii. This came after criticism in 2020 when a video surfaced of Miller appearing to choke a woman at a bar in Reykjavik, Iceland.

While there is no magic wand, spell or potion that can rid Fantastic Beasts from it’s stacked decked of controversies and scandals, it has certainly added to the seeming difficulty to get audiences to fall in love with this version of the wizarding world, when compared to the intense Harry Potter fame years ago.

On a bright spring morning, Jonathan Porter begins a tour of places that have made a profound difference in his life, beginning with a visit to the A.G. Gaston Boys Girls Club (AGGBGC) in Bessemer, and ending with an interview in his 16th-floor office at Alabama Power’s Corporate Headquarters in downtown Birmingham.

In between those stops, Porter – chairman of the board of directors for the Birmingham Organizing Committee for The World Games 2022 (TWG 2022) and senior vice president of Customer Operations at Alabama Power – makes a trip to his boyhood home in Bessemer, where he visits his mother.

“She means everything to me,” Porter said. “No matter how high I get (in my career), I will always be looking up to her.”

Nowadays, Porter, 48, has people looking up to him. As chairman of the TWG 2022 board, he must oversee all operations, lead fundraising efforts, and be an ambassador for the games, the city, the state and even the nation.

“Of course, there’s a team,” Porter said. “We have a great team of folks that are committed to the success of the games, committed to showcasing the city of Birmingham, the state of Alabama, as this new South.

“(TWG 2022) is going to be the largest event in the state of Alabama’s history. … For me – a little kid from Bessemer, an (historically Black college and university) HBCU grad, (someone) that statistically probably shouldn’t even be in these seats – now being asked to chair this huge international event, was truly humbling,” said Porter, who hopes his story will show young people with similar backgrounds that they have the capacity to beat the odds.

TWG 2022, which will draw elite athletes from more than 100 countries around the globe, will take place from July 7 through July 17, at venues across the Birmingham area – including Protective Stadium, Legion Field, the Birmingham CrossPlex and the Hoover Metropolitan Complex.

The event is held every four years in the year following the Summer Olympic Games. The World Games represents the pinnacle of competition for 3,600 of the world’s best athletes in more than 30 unique, multidisciplinary sports, including billiards, wheelchair rugby and dance.

Porter knows what’s at stake and he doesn’t take his role lightly. He sees TWG 2022 as an opportunity to show the world that Birmingham can live up to its nickname – “The Magic City.”

“Folks outside of the state and the city still tend to think of Alabama and Birmingham in black and white. They think of what they saw in the 1960s,” Porter said. “Yes, we will embrace our history, but we want to focus on our trajectory and the city of Birmingham being this new vibrant city in the South.”

A good foundation

Growing up, Porter spent much of his time outside of school at the AGGBGC in Bessemer, which is where he recently met with The Birmingham Times for this profile and a tour of the places that have made a difference in his life. The club is where he began playing football, which he calls his “first love.”

“It also introduced me to a number of coaches that really stepped in as father figures,” he said. “I met some of my best friends still to this day, and it kept me focused on something positive rather than just running the streets.”

Today, Porter is on the AGGBGC board as a way to give back to an organization that gave so much to him.

“They had summer enrichment programs along with sports, and they taught us fundamental principles like leadership, discipline, teamwork and being accountable for your actions,” he said. “It really laid a good foundation for me.”

‘A bunch of love’

Porter was born in Tuskegee, but his family relocated to Bessemer when he was in first grade, so he considers Bessemer his hometown. His parents separated when he was about 7 years old.

“I grew up in a single-parent home, not a broken home,” he said. “A broken home is a home where there is no love. I had a bunch of love.”

That love came from his mother, Gwendolyn, who still lives in the Bessemer home he grew up in. That was the second stop during this interview.

“My mother means everything to me,” Porter said. “She has had to be a mother and father, doctor, lawyer, cheerleader – everything. She keeps me grounded.”

Porter’s mother motivated him to make education a top priority, so he knew that bringing home bad grades was unacceptable.

“I would not be where I am if it had not been for Gwen Porter,” he said. “No matter how high I get, I will always be looking up to her.”

Finding Wakanda

Porter also credits his start at Jackson Solomon Abrams Elementary School in Bessemer, where he was honored recently by representatives of The World Games 2022 and the cities of Birmingham and Bessemer.

Porter couldn’t thank the elementary school enough for what it meant to him. Quoting German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Porter told students and officials, “‘If you treat a man as he is, he will remain as he is. If you treat him as he should be and as he could be, that he will be,’ so I want to thank Bessemer City Schools, J.S. Abrams Elementary School, for treating me as I should be,” Porter said. At Jess Lanier High School (now Bessemer City High School), Porter continued to play football and helped lead the school to a state championship. He went on to play for Tuskegee University, where he was a four-year letterman in football as a running back/fullback and was an All-Conference Scholar-Athlete.

“Football was good to me,” Porter said. “It financed my way through college.”

The executive said the gridiron helped prepare him for life after college. The sport taught him discipline, the importance of teamwork and how to get along with different personalities, which are skills he uses every day in his role at Alabama Power and as chairman of the TWG 2022 board.

In 2019, Porter was inducted into the Tuskegee University Athletic Hall of Fame.

Despite his love of football, Porter is eager to show young Black men that athletics aren’t their only option for a better life.

“Sports are great and provide an avenue to things, but I want our young people to understand that through education you can also do something outside of sports,” Porter said.

He recalls a line from the song “Things Done Changed” by the Notorious B.I.G.: “Either you’re slingin’ crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot.”

“A lot of young people in our community think those are their only options,” Porter said. “But you can have a wicked jump shot and have a 4.0 (grade-point average).”

Porter received much more than a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Tuskegee: “I got an education of self,” he said. “That’s really where I became a man.”

Moreover, meeting people from various backgrounds challenged him and helped him grow. “I know there’s a lot of re-emphasis on HBCUs right now, but for me Tuskegee was Wakanda way before ‘Black Panther,’” he said, likening the university to the fictional  African country that is home to the Marvel Comics superhero and depicted as the world’s most technologically advanced society.

Knowing that renowned men like educator Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver and author Ralph Ellison once graced the campus made Porter feel that every day he was walking on hallowed ground. At the end of his time at Tuskegee, Porter was offered several jobs in other states, but he turned them all down.

“I realized that I loved this state, and I wanted to stay,” he said. “I wanted to give back to the community in which I grew up. If you keep taking away from the soil but you don’t replenish it, that land eventually dies. I turned down several job offers that would have me out of state because I wanted to do my part in replenishing the soil, so we can continue to grow our talent.”

Maintaining relationships

Porter joined Alabama Power in 1991 as an intern through INROADS Inc., described on its website as “a nonprofit organization that creates pathways to careers for ethnically diverse high school and college students.” As part of the program, Porter continued to intern at the utility every summer until he completed his undergraduate studies.

After briefly working as an underwriting analyst at Protective Life Corp. and as a manager at INROADS, Porter rejoined Alabama Power in 2000. Over the past 22 years, he’s held various positions, including senior corporate recruiter, vice president of Human Resources and Ethics, and Birmingham Division vice president. Currently, he is senior vice president of Customer Operations, managing more than 600 employees across the state. He visits each Alabama Power office once each quarter to maintain good relationships with those employees.

In addition to his work with the power company, TWG 2022 and AGGBGC, Porter serves on several other boards, including the Jefferson County Education Foundation, the Jefferson County Economic and Industrial Development Authority, United Way of Central Alabama, REV Birmingham Inc., the Birmingham Business Alliance and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Even with his demanding schedule, Porter’s top priorities are spending time with his wife, Kima, and “building on a great relationship” with his daughters, Laila, 18, and Kailyn, 12. Watching movies with his daughters is one of his favorite weekend pastimes. He and his youngest daughter recently binged all the Harry Potter movies.

‘Historic or history’

“Birmingham has to decide whether we’re going to be historic or history,” said Porter, now sitting in his corporate office after visits to the AGGBGC and his childhood home in Bessemer. “I think sometimes when you focus on your past so much and that’s the only thing that defines you, you can become history.”

TWG 2022 is an opportunity for Birmingham to show that it’s relevant and here to stay, he said, adding that he hopes the games – projected to have $256 million in economic impact – will also show that Birmingham is “open for business.”

To showcase the city’s dedication to diversity, TWG 2022 has committed to spending 35% of its budget with minority- and women-owned businesses and is creating other opportunities for entrepreneurs. Additionally, the games will feature an interactive job fair highlighting jobs that are available in Alabama in manufacturing, health care and technology.

“Just like the eyes of the world were on our city and state during the 1960s, the eyes of the world are on us right now in 2022,” Porter said. “What a great opportunity we have to rewrite the narrative of Birmingham and the state of Alabama.”

TWG 2022 is July 7-July 17 at venues across the Birmingham area. For more visit twg2022.com.

This story originally appeared in The Birmingham Times.