title: Thoth

text: The Egyptians credited him as the author of all works of science, religion, philosophy, and magic. The Greeks further declared him the inventor of astronomy, astrology, the science of numbers, mathematics, geometry, surveying, medicine, botany, theology, civilized government, the alphabet, reading, writing, and oratory. They further claimed he was the true author of every work of every branch of knowledge, human and divine.


title: Thoth

text: Egyptian mythology credits Thoth with the creation of the 365-day calendar. Originally, according to the myth, the year was only 360 days long and Nut was sterile during these days, unable to bear children. Thoth gambled with the Moon for 1/72nd of its light (360/72 = 5), or 5 days, and won. During these 5 days, Nut and Geb gave birth to Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.


title: Thoth

text: In the central Osiris myth, Thoth gives Isis the words to restore her husband, allowing the pair to conceive Horus. Following a battle between Horus and Set, Thoth offers counsel and provides wisdom.


title: Thoth

text: Thoth was a Moon god. The Moon not only provides light at night, allowing time to still be measured without the sun, but its phases and prominence gave it a significant importance in early astrology/astronomy. The perceived cycles of the Moon also organized much of Egyptian society's rituals and events, both civil and religious. Consequently, Thoth gradually became seen as a god of wisdom, magic, and the measurement and regulation of events and of time. He was thus said to be the secretary and counselor of the sun god Ra, and with Ma'at (truth/order) stood next to Ra on the nightly voyage across the sky.


title: Thoth

text: Thoth became credited by the ancient Egyptians as the inventor of writing (hieroglyphs), and was also considered to have been the scribe of the underworld. For this reason, Thoth was universally worshipped by ancient Egyptian scribes. Many scribes had a painting or a picture of Thoth in their "office". Likewise, one of the symbols for scribes was that of the ibis.


title: Thoth

text: In art, Thoth was usually depicted with the head of an ibis, possibly because the Egyptians saw the curve of the ibis' beak as a symbol of the crescent moon. Sometimes, he was depicted as a baboon holding up a crescent moon.


title: Thoth

text: During the Late Period of ancient Egypt, a cult of Thoth gained prominence due to its main center, Khmun (Hermopolis Magna), also becoming the capital. Millions of dead ibis were mummified and buried in his honor.


title: Thoth

text: Thoth was inserted in many tales as the wise counselor and persuader, and his association with learning and measurement led him to be connected with Seshat, the earlier deification of wisdom, who was said to be his daughter, or variably his wife. Thoth's qualities also led to him being identified by the Greeks with their closest matching god Hermes, with whom Thoth was eventually combined as Hermes Trismegistus, leading to the Greeks' naming Thoth's cult center as Hermopolis, meaning "city of Hermes".


title: Thoth

text: In the Papyrus of Ani copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead the scribe proclaims "I am thy writing palette, O Thoth, and I have brought unto thee thine ink-jar. I am not of those who work iniquity in their secret places; let not evil happen unto me." Plate XXIX Chapter CLXXV (Budge) of the Book of the Dead is the oldest tradition said to be the work of Thoth himself.


title: Thoth

text: There was also an Egyptian pharaoh of the Sixteenth dynasty named Djehuty (Thoth) after him, and who reigned for three years.


title: Thoth

text: Plato mentions Thoth in his dialogue, Phaedrus. He uses the myth of Thoth to demonstrate that writing leads to laziness and forgetfulness. In the story, Thoth remarks to King Thamus of Egypt that writing is a wonderful substitute for memory. Thamus remarks that it is a remedy for reminding, not remembering, with the appearance but not the reality of wisdom. Future generations will hear much without being properly taught and will appear wise but not be so.


title: Thoth

text: Artapanus of Alexandria, an Egyptian Jew who lived in the third or second century BC, euhemerized Thoth-Hermes as a historical human being and claimed he was the same person as Moses, based primarily on their shared roles as authors of texts and creators of laws. Artapanus's biography of Moses conflates traditions about Moses and Thoth and invents many details. Many later authors, from late antiquity to the Renaissance, either identified Hermes Trismegistus with Moses or regarded them as contemporaries who expounded similar beliefs.


title: Thoth

text: Egypt’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of the collective graves of senior officials and high clergies of the god Thoth in Tuna el-Gebel in Minya in January 2020. An archaeological mission headed by Mostafa Waziri reported that 20 sarcophagi and coffins of various shapes and sizes, including five anthropoid sarcophagi made of limestone and carved with hieroglyphic texts, as well as 16 tombs and five well-preserved wooden coffins were unearthed by their team.


title: Thoth

text: Thoth has been seen as a god of wisdom and has been used in modern literature, especially since the early 20th century when ancient Egyptian ideas were quite popular.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: In biology, a kingdom is the second highest taxonomic rank, just below domain. Kingdoms are divided into smaller groups called phyla.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: Traditionally, some textbooks from the United States and Canada used a system of six kingdoms (Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea/Archaebacteria, and Bacteria/Eubacteria) while textbooks in Great Britain, India, Greece, Brazil and other countries use five kingdoms only (Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista and Monera).


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: Some recent classifications based on modern cladistics have explicitly abandoned the term "kingdom", noting that some traditional kingdoms are not monophyletic, meaning that they do not consist of all the descendants of a common ancestor. The terms "flora" (for plants), "fauna" (for animals), and, in the 21st century, "funga" (for fungi) are also used for life present in a particular region or time.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: When Carl Linnaeus introduced the rank-based system of nomenclature into biology in 1735, the highest rank was given the name "kingdom" and was followed by four other main or principal ranks: class, order, genus and species. Later two further main ranks were introduced, making the sequence kingdom, phylum or division, class, order, family, genus and species. In 1990, the rank of domain was introduced above kingdom.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: Prefixes can be added so "subkingdom" ("subregnum") and "infrakingdom" (also known as "infraregnum") are the two ranks immediately below kingdom. Superkingdom may be considered as an equivalent of domain or empire or as an independent rank between kingdom and domain or subdomain. In some classification systems the additional rank "branch" (Latin: "ramus") can be inserted between subkingdom and infrakingdom, e.g., Protostomia and Deuterostomia in the classification of Cavalier-Smith.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: The classification of living things into animals and plants is an ancient one. Aristotle (384–322 BC) classified animal species in his "History of Animals", while his pupil Theophrastus (–) wrote a parallel work, the "Historia Plantarum", on plants.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) laid the foundations for modern biological nomenclature, now regulated by the Nomenclature Codes, in 1735. He distinguished two kingdoms of living things: "Regnum Animale" ('animal kingdom') and "Regnum Vegetabile" ('vegetable kingdom', for plants). Linnaeus also included minerals in his classification system, placing them in a third kingdom, "Regnum Lapideum".


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: In 1674, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, often called the "father of microscopy", sent the Royal Society of London a copy of his first observations of microscopic single-celled organisms. Until then, the existence of such microscopic organisms was entirely unknown. Despite this, Linnaeus did not include any microscopic creatures in his original taxonomy.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: At first, microscopic organisms were classified within the animal and plant kingdoms. However, by the mid–19th century, it had become clear to many that "the existing dichotomy of the plant and animal kingdoms [had become] rapidly blurred at its boundaries and outmoded".


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: In 1860 John Hogg proposed the "Protoctista", a third kingdom of life composed of "all the lower creatures, or the primary organic beings"; he retained Regnum Lapideum as a fourth kingdom of minerals. In 1866, Ernst Haeckel also proposed a third kingdom of life, the "Protista", for "neutral organisms" or "the kingdom of primitive forms", which were neither animal nor plant; he did not include the Regnum Lapideum in his scheme. Haeckel revised the content of this kingdom a number of times before settling on a division based on whether organisms were unicellular (Protista) or multicellular (animals and plants).


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: The development of microscopy revealed important distinctions between those organisms whose cells do not have a distinct nucleus (prokaryotes) and organisms whose cells do have a distinct nucleus (eukaryotes). In 1937 Édouard Chatton introduced the terms "prokaryote" and "eukaryote" to differentiate these organisms.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: In 1938, Herbert F. Copeland proposed a four-kingdom classification by creating the novel Kingdom Monera of prokaryotic organisms; as a revised phylum Monera of the Protista, it included organisms now classified as Bacteria and Archaea. Ernst Haeckel, in his 1904 book "The Wonders of Life", had placed the blue-green algae (or Phycochromacea) in Monera; this would gradually gain acceptance, and the blue-green algae would become classified as bacteria in the phylum Cyanobacteria.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: In the 1960s, Roger Stanier and C. B. van Niel promoted and popularized Édouard Chatton's earlier work, particularly in their paper of 1962, "The Concept of a Bacterium"; this created, for the first time, a rank above kingdom—a "superkingdom" or "empire"—with the two-empire system of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The two-empire system would later be expanded to the three-domain system of Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryota.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: The differences between fungi and other organisms regarded as plants had long been recognised by some; Haeckel had moved the fungi out of Plantae into Protista after his original classification, but was largely ignored in this separation by scientists of his time. Robert Whittaker recognized an additional kingdom for the Fungi. The resulting five-kingdom system, proposed in 1969 by Whittaker, has become a popular standard and with some refinement is still used in many works and forms the basis for new multi-kingdom systems. It is based mainly upon differences in nutrition; his Plantae were mostly multicellular autotrophs, his Animalia multicellular heterotrophs, and his Fungi multicellular saprotrophs.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: The remaining two kingdoms, Protista and Monera, included unicellular and simple cellular colonies. The five kingdom system may be combined with the two empire system. In the Whittaker system, Plantae included some algae. In other systems, such as Lynn Margulis's system of five kingdoms, the plants included just the land plants (Embryophyta), and Protoctista has a broader definition.


title: Kingdom (biology)

text: Following publication of Whittaker's system, the five-kingdom model began to be commonly used in high school biology textbooks. But despite the development from two kingdoms to five among most scientists, some authors as late as 1975 continued to employ a traditional two-kingdom system of animals and plants, dividing the plant kingdom into subkingdoms Prokaryota (bacteria and cyanobacteria), Mycota (fungi and supposed relatives), and Chlorota (algae and land plants).


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Dawson's Creek is an American teen drama television series about the lives of a close-knit group of friends in the fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts, beginning in high school and continuing into college that ran from 1998 to 2003. The series starred James Van Der Beek as Dawson Leery, Katie Holmes as his best friend and love interest, Joey Potter, Joshua Jackson as their fellow friend Pacey Witter, and Michelle Williams as Jen Lindley, a New York City transplant to Capeside. The show was created by Kevin Williamson and debuted on The WB on January 20, 1998. It was produced by Columbia TriStar Television (renamed Sony Pictures Television before the sixth and final season) and was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina. The series ended on May 14, 2003.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Along with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Dawson's Creek" became the flagship show for The WB and launched its main cast to international stardom. The show placed at No. 90 on "Entertainment Weekly" "New TV Classics" list in 2007. It has also been credited with kicking off a boom of teen-centered shows in the late 1990s that continued into the 2000s.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Dawson Leery is an introspective 15-year-old and aspiring filmmaker in the small New England town of Capeside, Massachusetts. Since childhood, he has been best friends with Josephine “Joey” Potter, who routinely comes over to his house through a ladder into his bedroom for movie-watching and platonic sleepovers. Tomboy Joey, who lost her mother to cancer and whose father is in prison for drug trafficking, lives with her older sister Bessie, who runs the restaurant The Icehouse. Dawson works at a video rental store with his other best friend Pacey Witter, an underachieving class clown who occasionally squabbles with Joey. Dawson and Joey dance around a growing attraction to one another, but their dynamic shifts with the arrival of Jen Lindley, who has moved to Capeside from New York City to live with her grandparents. The series explores the characters’ coming-of-age, dealing with topics such as first love, loss, coming out, homophobia, class differences, mental health, and divorce.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The first season covers a love triangle between Dawson, Joey, and Jen, which some critics compared to the love triangle between Archie Comics characters Archie, Betty, and Veronica. Some episodes featured homages to movies such as "The Breakfast Club" or referenced Kevin Williamson’s work on "Scream". Jen's reasons for moving to Capeside are revealed. Pacey aims to lose his virginity and tries to seduce a new teacher at Capeside High School. Dawson must cope with the news his mother Gail is carrying on an affair.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The second season takes place during the characters’ second half of their sophomore year. Twin siblings Andie and Jack McPhee move to Capeside and enroll at the high school. The type-A achiever Andie becomes romantically involved with Pacey and helps him to become more motivated. In return, Pacey becomes a rock for Andie as it is revealed she struggles with mental illness. Joey finds herself drawn to Jack, who initially reciprocates her feelings, but comes to realize he is gay, which puts him at odds with homophobic classmates and an intolerant father. Jen befriends "bad girl" Abby Morgan and goes down a path of self-destruction. Dawson must deal with the divorce of his parents, Mitch and Gail.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The third season saw the beginning of their junior year and a blossoming romance between Joey and Pacey. When Dawson discovers his two friends have become a couple behind his back, he is dejected and angry. Dawson and Pacey become rivals for Joey’s affection. Joey tries to repair her friendship with Dawson, but at the end of the season, Dawson realizes he doesn’t want to hold Joey back, so he urges her to go and join Pacey who is sailing down the coast for the summer. Jen is pursued by freshman football player Henry Parker and initially finds him immature but grows to return his feelings. Jack tries to find his first gay experience, while also juggling football, and trying to find a new place to live after his dad sells the only home he knows.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The fourth season takes place during the characters’ senior year of high school and deals with Joey and Pacey’s ups and downs as a couple. Their relationship is tested by differing post-high school plans, Joey’s friendship with Dawson, and Pacey’s insecurity. Jen learns that Henry wants to break up with her. Andie almost dies in an accident at a rave when she takes ecstasy that was in Jen's possession. The incident fractures Jen's friendship with Jack. Dawson starts to date Gretchen, Pacey’s older sister who has moved back to Capeside.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The fifth season follows the characters leaving their small town to begin new lives in big cities. Dawson attends USC Film School but starts to have second thoughts about his path. Joey, Jen and Jack remain on the East Coast and attend college in Boston. Pacey finds himself adrift after working on a yacht all summer but enters the restaurant business. Jack joins a fraternity and embraces life as an openly gay college student, but it puts his relationship with Toby on thin ice. Joey struggles to adjust to life as a college student and falls in love with her English professor. Jen finds herself drawn into a whirlwind relationship.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: In the sixth season, Dawson moves to Boston and begins to work on a low-budget film project that echoes his life in Capeside. Jen must deal with her parents' impending divorce, while Jack faces sexual harassment from a professor. Pacey works as a chef at a Boston restaurant, but embarks on a new career which comes as a surprise to everyone. The two-part finale, which is set in the year 2008, was written by Kevin Williamson.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Following the selling of his spec script for Wes Craven-directed "Scream" (1996), film assistant Kevin Williamson was taking several meetings with film and television producers before the slasher film began production. In what would be his first television meeting, Williamson met executive Paul Stupin; when asked if he had ideas for a television production, Williamson came up with the idea of a teen series based on his youth growing up near a North Carolina creek as an aspiring filmmaker who admired director Steven Spielberg. Stupin liked his idea and asked him to come back the next day and pitch it to Columbia TriStar Television studios, prompting Williamson to write a 20-page outline for "Dawson's Creek" that night. Williamson pitched the show "as "Some Kind of Wonderful", meets "Pump Up the Volume", meets "James at 15", meets "My So-Called Life", meets "Little House on the Prairie"", also taking inspiration from teen drama "Beverly Hills, 90210" as he "wanted it to speak to the teenage audience of the day".


title: Dawson's Creek

text: When Columbia requested him to relocate the show to Boston, Massachusetts, he settled with fictional Capeside, and pitched it to Fox. However, commissioned amid the struggling of "Party of Five", Fox wondered if they needed another teen drama, and while they were supportive of Williamson's scripts, they eventually passed on it. Left unused, Columbia TriStar sent his scripts to newly founded The WB network who was looking for fresh ideas for their programme after launching supernatural drama series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Williamson went for a meeting with then-chief programmer Garth Ancier and entertainment president Susanne Daniels who loved his script and picked it up for the network's new Tuesday night lineup. Procter & Gamble Productions joined in as an original co-producer of the series, but sold its interest in the show three months before the premiere when printed stories surfaced about the racy dialogue and risqué plot lines.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: "Dawson's Creek" would become responsible for launching the acting careers of its young lead stars James Van Der Beek, Michelle Williams, Katie Holmes, and Joshua Jackson, who had varying levels of acting experience prior to being cast in the show. Known for his appearance in "The Mighty Ducks" series, playing a young and aspiring hockey player, Jackson was initially considered for the main role of Dawson Leery. However, while Williamson "fell in love" with Jackson, citing his ability to read any role during the auditions, he felt that Jackson's good looks would not fit the underdog, nerd, and video geek character he envisioned for the show's titular character. After The WB expressed their wish to look for a different actor, Williamson decided on casting him in the role of Dawson's best friend Pacey Witter instead. After watching a video of James Van Der Beek that his casting director had sent in, the casting crew invited him to audition in Los Angeles. A regular off-Broadway performer, Van Der Beek impressed Williamson with his "cerebral and internal" quality, citing "that nervousness that made it seem like he was pre-thinking and over-thinking and over-compensating constantly like he was insecure. And we said, "There's Dawson"." Actors Charlie Hunnam, Adrian Grenier, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Scott Speedman also auditioned for the role of Dawson, while Adam Brody read for Pacey.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: With the role of Dawson's best female friend Joey Potter, casting directors were looking for a tomboy character. Williamson and his team were initially close to casting actress Selma Blair in the role who had auditioned "very tough, [but] with a lot of heart," when an audition tape of Katie Holmes came in, in which she had filmed herself in her basement, with her mother reading Dawson's lines. Williamson thought she had exactly the right look for Joey, citing that "she had those eyes, those eyes just stained with loneliness." He asked her to come to California, but a conflict with her school play schedule prevented her from doing so. Upon her arrival in Los Angeles two weeks later, she was able to secure the role. Williams, who had acted in "Lassie", "Species", and in guest spots on TV sitcoms, impressed Williamson when she auditioned with a heartfelt scene in which her character Jen Lindley goes in and sees her grandfather lying in the bed, transforming herself "into this broken child who just needed to be fixed". Katherine Heigl also was one of the actresses who auditioned for the role of Jen after Steve Miner, who directed the show's pilot and Heigl's 1994 film "My Father the Hero", brought in the young star.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The entire first season, thirteen episodes, was filmed before the first episode even aired. After the end of the second season, Williamson left to focus on "Wasteland", a new show for ABC, but later returned to write the two-hour series finale. After Williamson's departure, Alex Gansa was selected as the new showrunner, but a production shutdown in addition to actors' unhappiness with the story lines at the start of season three led to Gansa being replaced by Greg Berlanti, who had been on the writing staff before Williamson's departure. Members of the series' writing staff—including Gina Fattore ("Gilmore Girls"), Jenny Bicks ("Sex and the City"), Julie Plec ("The Vampire Diaries"), Tom Kapinos ("Californication"), and Dana Baratta ("Jessica Jones")—would go on to create or write for other notable TV shows.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: During its first four seasons, "Dawson's Creek" was primarily filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, at EUE/Screen Gems studios and on location around Wilmington, with Southport and Wrightsville Beach also standing in for the fictional town of Capeside, a port city located in mid-Cape Cod. The Wilmington area benefited greatly from the show. While a number of films, commercials and music videos had been shot at the studios, "Dawson's Creek" was the first to occupy numerous soundstages for many years. Other shows as "One Tree Hill" later occupied some of these same soundstages for several years and used some of the same locations in Wilmington. In addition to business brought into the community by the project, it attracted attention to the city as a filming location and boosted tourism. The visitors' bureau distributed a special guide to filming locations used in the show.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: For the Leery, Lindley, and Potter homes private residences located along the shores of Hewletts Creek, a stream in New Hanover County, were used. Some of the scenes shown during the opening credits and miscellaneous scenery shots throughout the early episodes were filmed in Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, as well as Masonboro. Interiors for the Potter family's Icehouse restaurant were filmed at The Icehouse bar in downtown Wilmington, while exteriors were filmed at the Dockside Restaurant in Wrightsville Beach. Nearby constructions at the real Icehouse later forced producers to eliminate the bar from the storyline by burning it down. Other prominent exterior shots include Alderman Hall on the University of North Carolina Wilmington campus, serving for Capeside High School.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Due to the architectural uniformity of the campus, it was difficult for the university to double as another campus in the show when the characters reached college in the fifth and sixth season. Therefore, scenes at the fictional Worthington University in Boston were filmed at Duke University and around Franklin Street at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Other filming locations in later seasons include Durham and Raleigh. The Hell's Kitchen bar featured in the show was a natural food store at 118 Princess Street in Wilmington which was purchased by producers, dressed as a seedy college bar and used for production during the show's last season. When production completed, the building was purchased by a local restaurateur, along with much of the set and decorations and was then converted into a real restaurant and bar that retains the same name.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The WB spent an estimated $3 million on marketing the show several months ahead of the January 20, 1998 series premiere. Promotion included billboards in addition to trailers in theaters before screenings of films like "Titanic", making The WB the first TV network to run trailers in movie theaters. A clip of the show was circulated to television critics and media outlets in the summer of 1997, generating buzz for the show’s risqué content that included frank sexual talk amongst teenagers and a romantic plot line between a teacher and a high school student.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: J.Crew, which was the show’s wardrobe provider, featured the then unknown cast for its winter-spring catalog. In January 1998, promos ran in Blockbuster video stores featuring the Paula Cole song “I Don’t Want to Wait”, which would later become the show’s theme song after producers could not secure the rights for Alanis Morissette's "Hand in My Pocket." The WB's marketing campaign led "Newsweek" to remark "Dawson's Creek" is “as much a marketing event as a small-town serial about overheated hormones.”


title: Dawson's Creek

text: During the series' run, producers and writers were among the first to use cross-platform fan engagement through the series’ official website, which was known as Dawson’s Desktop. On the site, users could peruse "Dawson’s multimedia journal and homework files, surf his bookmarked Web sites and listen to his CDs. They can read characters’ e-mails and chats and go through their trash bins.” According to show writer Jeffrey Stepakoff, “dawsonscreek.com [was] where fans could not only chat about the show, but tell us what they wanted to see next. The wishes of viewers had a very strong impact on the direction of the series. In fact, staff members were hired to interact regularly with fans online.”


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The show was broadcast in over 50 countries. It was especially popular in Australia, where it rated #1 in its time slot on Network Ten for several episodes and highly at other times from seasons one to four. Reruns of the show are often seen in Australia on 9Go! The show aired in the UK initially on Channel 4 but later moved to Channel 5 for its last two seasons. In 2007, Channel 5's sister channel 5Star began airing reruns on weekdays. From April 2011, it aired on Sony Channel on the Sky digital platform. In November 2017, the full series returned to Channel 4's streaming service All 4.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Dawson's Creek aired on Noggin's late-night programming block The N from 2006 to 2007, and then later moved to the 24-hour version of The N were it was aired until 2009 when the network became TeenNick and aired on TeenNick for a short time in 2015, and aired on Pop from 2012 to 2018, and aired on ABC Family for a short time in 2015.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: "Dawson's Creek" generated a large amount of publicity before its debut, with several television critics and consumer watchdog groups expressing concerns about its anticipated "racy" plots and dialogue. The controversy drove Procter & Gamble Productions, initially a co-producer of the series, away from the project. Syndicated columnist John Leo said the show should be called "While Parents Cringe," and went on to write, "The first episode contains a good deal of chatter about breasts, genitalia, masturbation, and penis size. Then the title and credits come on and the story begins."


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The Parents Television Council proclaimed the show as the single worst program of the 1997–98 and 1998–99 seasons by being "the crudest of the network shows aimed at kids", complaining about "an almost obsessive focus on pre-marital sexual activity", references to pornography and condoms, and the show's acceptance of homosexuality. Former UPN President Lucie Salhany criticized WB for airing "Dawson's Creek" which features "adolescent characters in adult situations" in an early time slot while the network is supposed to be 'the family network.'" However, on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, the National Organization for Women offered an endorsement, deeming it one of the least sexually exploitative shows on the air.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Much of the criticism cited the show’s early decision to feature a storyline about a romantic relationship between a high school student and a teacher.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Early reviews of the series were mixed to positive. During the season premiere, much was written about the show’s perceived racy content and the teens’ “unhealthy obsession with sex.” Negative reviews lambasted the show for its lack of realism, particularly its verbose dialogue spoken by the teen characters which "People" said strained credibility. "The Observer" called the show “simply misguided and misconceived (hyper-articulate, self-conscious teenagers go through puberty in a Macy's catalogue).” Tom Shales of "The Washington Post" commented that creator Kevin Williamson was "the most overrated wunderkind in Hollywood" and "what he's brilliant at is pandering."


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Other reviews noted the show tread familiar ground, with the "LA Weekly" writing, “[The show] comes alive in fits and starts, then folds back into a less original or less plausible or less coherent version of some part of something you’ve seen before, if you’ve seen "The Wonder Years", "My So-Called Life", "Degrassi High", "Party of Five", "Dangerous Minds", or "Beverly Hills, 90210". Or even one of those very special episodes of "Blossom".”


title: Dawson's Creek

text: On the other hand, multiple critics lauded the show's hyper-articulate, self-aware dialogue, saying it is what sets it apart from past teen shows. Caryn James of "The New York Times" wrote the "sophisticated awareness...characteristic of Mr. Williamson’s writing" is the show's standout. Bruce Fretts of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote, “That’s Kevin Williamson’s genius — just as "Scream" did with slasher flicks, "Creek" simultaneously works as a teen soap (you can’t help but get caught up in the Dawson-Jen-Joey triangle) and comments ironically on the genre (witness the digs at the overly earnest "90210" and "Party of Five"). The trouble is, some people aren’t getting the joke.” Jeff Simon of "The Buffalo News" opined, “This is the way wildly bright 15-year-old kids dearly want to talk, which puts "Dawson's Creek" into a higher class of realism entirely.” Williamson admitted he wrote the dialogue as such with the aim of showing "how teenagers would like to be seen, as opposed to being talked down to."


title: Dawson's Creek

text: In response to concerns about the show's sexual dialogue, some critics wrote "it's safe to assume teens have said, heard, or done far worse." "The Baltimore Sun" wrote the show is "not so much about sex as it is about growing up in a sex-obsessed culture. It's a subtle difference, but one that could make this newest prime-time soap a cut above the rest." "The Sacramento Bee" noted the show does not appear to glorify teacher-student romances as "Pacey’s great adventure is not seen by the others as a triumph, and in the end, both he and the teacher pay for [their liaison]."


title: Dawson's Creek

text: John Carman of the "San Francisco Chronicle" found "Dawson's Creek" scenically "downright luxuriant" and liked that it "doesn't have the rushed feel of so many teen shows. The edginess is in the situations, not the pacing." "Variety" wrote that it was "an addictive drama with considerable heart," and that "it’s a drama conceited enough to believe that it created the concept of teenagers who care and jaded enough to…[suggest] more than a post-pubescent pipe dream.” "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" acknowledged the sexual dialogue but said "Williamson conjures a strangely compelling blend of jadedness and innocence." The "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" wrote the show "is a real charmer, capturing not only the awkwardness and agonies of growing up but also the pure joy of possibilities ahead", and "The Seattle Times" declared it the best show of the 1997–1998 season and said it "belongs in that too-small pantheon of "My So-Called Life", "James at 15" and to a lesser extent, "Party of Five" and "Doogie Howser, M.D.""


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Praise for the cast was widespread. "LA Weekly" called the leads “luminous" and "talented," while "Variety" wrote, “As Dawson, Van Der Beek is an exquisitely talented heartthrob, and Holmes, as Joey, is a confident young performer who delivers her lines with slyness and conviction. Williams (Jen) and Jackson (Pacey), meanwhile, more than hold their own, with Jackson looking to be a budding star in his own right.”


title: Dawson's Creek

text: "Dawson's Creek" was nominated for fourteen awards, including ALMA Awards, Casting Society of America Awards, Golden Satellite Awards, TV Guide Awards, and YoungStar Awards. In 2000, the show was awarded a SHINE Award for consistently addressing sexual health issues on TV. By the end of its run, the show, its crew, and its young cast had been nominated for numerous awards, winning six of them. Joshua Jackson won the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actor three times, and the show won the Teen Choice Award for Choice Drama twice. The series also won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding TV Drama Series.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: While never a huge ratings success in the context of major networks like NBC, ABC, and CBS, "Dawson's Creek" did very well with the younger demographic it targeted and became a defining show for the WB Network. It became the highest-rated show among female teens at that time and helped ad revenue for the WB "soar from $100 million in 1996 to well over half a billion dollars in 1999." The pilot episode was watched by 6.8 million viewers and had a 4.8 rating which made it the network's highest ranked show within two months. The first season's highest ranked episode was the finale, which was fifty-ninth, while the second highest rated was the second episode (probably scoring so well partially because the other major networks carried President Clinton's State of the Union address in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal rather than their regular programming). The series finale itself was watched by 7.3 million U.S. viewers, which was its largest audience ever.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The show had, in the words of television experts Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, a "semi-spinoff" – "Young Americans". The protagonist of "Young Americans", Will Krudski (Rodney Scott), was introduced in three episodes at the end of the show's third season as a friend of Dawson, Joey, and Pacey's who had previously moved away and returned to Capeside for a visit. His character was never referred to before this story arc and did not appear again in the series after the season three episode "Show Me Love." "Young Americans" was made by the same company as "Dawson's Creek", Columbia TriStar Television, and appeared in "Dawson's Creek's" time slot during the show's break in the summer of 2000. "Young Americans" had 8 episodes. The reason the show is considered a semi-spinoff instead of a true spinoff is that the character of Will was not originally created for "Dawson's Creek", and was only introduced in "Dawson's" to set up and establish the premise of "Young Americans".


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The show served as inspiration for the production of the Argentine soap "Verano del '98", which received criticism for being a thinly veiled copy of "Dawson's Creek". The 2007 youth drama series "Kavak Yelleri" is also a Turkish remake of the show.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Curating popular music and breaking artists from the independent and alternative rock genres, "Dawson's Creek" became impactful on shaping the television music culture of teen and other drama series in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Instrumentation of the episodes was generally overseen by executive Paul Stupin, music supervisor John McCullough, and co-producer Drew Matich who helped artists rise to fame and made pivotal creative decisions. The trio approached music in "a way to convey the emotion, to convey the story," looking for songs to underplay whole sequences where viewers could also enjoy the music under dialogue. Thus, Stupin would often end up spending hours in the editing room with the editor going over candidates for songs that McCullough sent over. In some cases, they would look at, against picture, ten or 15 songs against each scene. Next to McCullough, recommendations for inclusion came "from everywhere", with writers, editors, co-producers and Sony Music executives playing pivotal roles.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Originally, Canadian recording artist Alanis Morissette's song "Hand in My Pocket" from her third studio album "Jagged Little Pill" (1995) served as the theme song in the unaired pilot episode of the television show. However, Morissette decided not to have it used as the theme after "Dawson's Creek" was picked up, prompting Stupin and McCullough to approach different artists for original material to use. In the meantime, The WB had licensed American singer-songwriter Paula Cole's song "I Don't Want to Wait" from her second album "This Fire" (1996) and suggested them to use it instead. An eleventh hour decision, it was incorporated late into the promotion of the series but became a hit on the US "Billboard" charts upon the show's debut in January 1998. The first season's score was provided by Adam Fields, including the "End Credits Theme," which was used on all six seasons.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Because Sony Music failed to secure the rights for home video and online streaming services when the show was produced and did not wish to pay for them later, most of the songs that aired in the original broadcasts were replaced in the DVD editions and upon the video-on-demand debut of the show. Starting with the third season, "I Don't Want to Wait" was also dropped from the opening sequence of the DVD releases due to budget reasons and was replaced by "Run Like Mad" from Canadian folk artist Jann Arden, a regular music contributor to the series. The 32-second recording was one of the original intros that Stupin commissioned after he had failed to acquire rights to Morissette's song and which international broadcasts had previously used as the theme song for the first season before switching to Cole's song for the remainder of the run. In 2021, Cole recorded a new version of "I Don't Want to Wait" to avoid licensing issues with the original master, which Netflix restored as the theme song.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: During its original run, "Dawson's Creek" spawned two volumes of soundtrack albums. The album "Songs from Dawson's Creek" was released after the broadcasting of the series' first season in April 1999, and became a major success worldwide. It reached the top of the Australian Albums Chart and also peaked within the top in Austria, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. During it first sixth months of release, the album sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide and was certified triple platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In Australia, it became the fifth highest selling album of 1999. "Songs from Dawson's Creek – Volume 2" was released in October 2000 to coincide with the debut of the series' fourth season. Less successful, it reached the top twenty of Austrian and Swiss Albums Charts, while peaking at number 50 on the US "Billboard" 200.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Simon & Schuster published a series of fifteen mass-market paperback novelizations of the series. Before joining the series’ staff as episode writers, Liz Tigelaar and Anna Fricke wrote a young adult suspense-themed series as a companion to the show.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The show's influence as a cultural touchstone has been widely acknowledged by media outlets and critics. In an article for "BuzzFeed News", Sandi Rankaduwa wrote about why the show resonated with young people who came of age during the era of Columbine and 9/11, saying "At a time in teens’ lives when they’re tasked with trying to understand their place in the world, events unfolding around them were becoming increasingly senseless. So it’s not entirely surprising that a show featuring confused, outsider teens who seemed more self-aware than the adults around them became comfort food for so many young Americans...but despite its nostalgic elements, "Dawson’s Creek" managed to portray a warts-and-all world in which viewers watched smart, stubborn, and emotional characters search for stability, and seeing them both struggle and succeed in a controlled space became therapeutic. The breadth of characters was wide enough to give everyone at least one person to root for and relate to, especially for a primarily teen girl audience."


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Rankaduwa added, "Unlike the glamorous lifestyles shown in shows like "Beverly Hills, 90210" and later "The O.C.", both on Fox, the stories of teens on the Creek felt somewhat accessible. And when it came to what made "Dawson’s Creek" so significant to its teen viewers, it wasn’t just the words, it was who was saying them.”


title: Dawson's Creek

text: "Entertainment Weekly" ranked Pacey and Joey as number 20 on their list of the 100 Best TV Romances of All Time. The season three finale episode "True Love" is ranked at number 50 on "The Ringer"'s list of 100 Best TV Episodes of the Century. The character of Jack McPhee was cited as being among the most groundbreaking gay roles on television and his kiss with Ethan marked the first romantic kiss between two gay male characters on primetime TV.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The popularity and success of "Dawson's Creek" is credited with paving the way for subsequent teen shows. In 2018, Kristen Baldwin of "EW" argued, "Without "Dawson’s" (and its original lead-out, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), we would never have the hyper-verbal, pop culture-obsessed teens of "Riverdale"— not to mention "Felicity" and "Charmed" (1998), "Popular", "Freaks and Geeks" (which was actually pitched as 'the anti-"Dawson’s Creek"') and "Roswell" (1999), "Gilmore Girls" (2000), "Everwood" (2002), or 2003’s "One Tree Hill" and "The O.C." After all, who is Seth Cohen but a snarkier, more Jewish Dawson Leery?"


title: Dawson's Creek

text: Baldwin continued, "with "Dawson’s" the characters didn’t just suffer through crushes and hormones and parental drama — they talked endlessly, and with hilarious eloquence, about how cliché their crushes and hormones and parental drama was. As EW’s Chris Nashawaty wrote in 1997, on the eve of Dawson’s premiere, 'Williamson shows teens a reflection of how they want to be seen: witty, urbane, and always armed with a perfectly barbed, sarcastic comeback.'"


title: Dawson's Creek

text: In 2018, the cast reunited for the series' 20th anniversary in a special issue of "Entertainment Weekly", which included five different collectible covers for its print issue. The weekend following the reunion cover saw streaming traffic for the series on Hulu quadruple.


title: Dawson's Creek

text: When asked about the possibility of a reboot, Katie Holmes said, "What I love about the show is that it existed at a time pre-social media, pre-internet, and it was nostalgic when we were shooting it. So I really like it where it is, to be honest." Kevin Williamson added, ""Dawson's Creek" was me expressing myself at that point in time. And here I am, at another age, at another point in time. I don't know what I could emotionally bring to the table. I can't wait for someone else to do it. I don't think it's going to be me. But I'll be happy to watch it."


title: Dawson's Creek

text: The series was frequently referenced in other media, including "South Park" and "Family Guy", at the height of its popularity. The children's sketch comedy series "The Amanda Show" included a recurring soap opera parody segment called "Moody’s Point." The series was also parodied at the 1998 MTV Movie Awards and in the film "Scary Movie", the latter which James Van Der Beek makes a cameo appearance in.


title: Kevin Costner filmography

text: American actor, director, and producer Kevin Costner started his acting career in 1981 by starring in the romantic comedy independent film "Sizzle Beach, U.S.A.". He went on to appear in the films "Testament" (1983), and "Shadows Run Black" (1984) before co-starring in the 1985 ensemble western film "Silverado" alongside Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, and Danny Glover. The same year, he starred in the comedy film "Fandango" with Judd Nelson. In 1987, Costner starred as Eliot Ness in the crime film "The Untouchables" with Robert De Niro and Sean Connery. The following year, he starred as Crash Davis in the romantic comedy sports film "Bull Durham" with Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. The film is on AFI's 10 Top 10 for Greatest Sports Movies. Costner then starred in the sports fantasy drama film "Field of Dreams" with James Earl Jones. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2017, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It's also on AFI's 10 Top 10 for Greatest Fantasy Movies.


title: Kevin Costner filmography

text: In the 1990's, Costner starred in numerous films including the 1990 epic Western film "Dances with Wolves" as Lieutenant John J. Dunbar, which he also directed and produced. The film received 12 Academy Awards nominations with Costner winning Best Picture, Best Director and was nominated for Best Actor. He also starred as Robin Hood in "" with Morgan Freeman (1991), "The Bodyguard" with Whitney Houston (1992), "Wyatt Earp" with Dennis Quaid (1994), "Tin Cup" with Rene Russo (1996), "The Postman" with Will Patton (1997), "Message in a Bottle" with Robin Wright (1999) and "For Love of the Game" with Kelly Preston (also 1999). In the 2000's, he co-starred in the heist black action comedy film "3000 Miles to Graceland" with Kurt Russell (2001), the Revisionist Western film "Open Range" with Robert Duvall (2003), Rob Reiner's romantic comedy film "Rumor Has It" with Jennifer Aniston (2005), psychological thriller film "Mr. Brooks" with Demi Moore (2007), and the comedy-drama film "Swing Vote" with Kelsey Grammer (2008).


title: Kevin Costner filmography

text: He was cast as Jonathan Kent in Zack Snyder's 2013 superhero film "Man of Steel", based on the DC Comics character Superman. In 2014, he co-starred in the films "" with Chris Pine, "3 Days to Kill" with Amber Heard, and "Draft Day" with Jennifer Garner. For his role in the 2016 biographical drama film "Hidden Figures", Costner and the cast won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. He played Jessica Chastain's father in the 2017 biographical crime drama film "Molly's Game" and he portrayed lawman and Texas Ranger Frank Hamer in the 2019 period crime thriller film "The Highwaymen" opposite Woody Harrelson.


title: Kevin Costner filmography

text: Costner's television work includes playing Devil Anse Hatfield in the three-part Western television miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys", and since 2018, he has played John Dutton on the neo-Western drama series "Yellowstone".


title: Brahmin

text: Brahmin (; ) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru or acharya). The other three varnas are the Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra.


title: Brahmin

text: The traditional occupation of Brahmins is that of priesthood at the Hindu temples or at socio-religious ceremonies, and rite of passage rituals such as solemnising a wedding with hymns and prayers. Traditionally, the Brahmins are accorded the highest ritual status of the four social classes. Their livelihood is prescribed to be one of strict austerity and voluntary poverty ("A Brahmin should acquire what just suffices for the time, what he earns he should spend all that the same day"). In practice, Indian texts suggest that some Brahmins historically also became agriculturalists, warriors, traders, and had also held other occupations in the Indian subcontinent.


title: Brahmin

text: The earliest inferred reference to "Brahmin" as a possible social class is in the Rigveda, occurs once, and the hymn is called Purusha Sukta. According to a hymn in "Mandala" 10, Rigveda 10.90.11-2, Brahmins are described as having emerged from the mouth of Purusha, being that part of the body from which words emerge.


title: Brahmin

text: The Purusha Sukta varna verse is now generally considered to have been inserted at a later date into the Vedic text, possibly as a charter myth. Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton, a professor of Sanskrit and Religious studies, state, "there is no evidence in the Rigveda for an elaborate, much-subdivided and overarching caste system", and "the varna system seems to be embryonic in the Rigveda and, both then and later, a social ideal rather than a social reality".


title: Brahmin

text: According to Kulkarni, the Grhya-sutras state that Yajna, Adhyayana (studying the vedas and teaching), dana pratigraha (accepting and giving gifts) are the "peculiar duties and privileges of brahmins".


title: Brahmin

text: The term Brahmin in Indian texts has signified someone who is good and virtuous, not just someone of priestly class. Patrick Olivelle states that both Buddhist and Brahmanical literature repeatedly define "Brahmin" not in terms of family of birth, but in terms of personal qualities. These virtues and characteristics mirror the values cherished in Hinduism during the Sannyasa stage of life, or the life of renunciation for spiritual pursuits. Brahmins, states Olivelle, were the social class from which most ascetics came.


title: Brahmin

text: The Dharmasutra and Dharmashaastra texts of Hinduism describe the expectations, duties and role of Brahmins.


title: Brahmin

text: John Bussanich states that the ethical precepts set for Brahmins, in ancient Indian texts, are similar to Greek virtue-ethics, that "Manu's dharmic Brahmin can be compared to Aristotle's man of practical wisdom", and that "the virtuous Brahmin is not unlike the Platonic-Aristotelian philosopher" with the difference that the latter was not sacerdotal.


title: Brahmin

text: The Brahmins were expected to perform all six Vedic duties as opposed to other twice-borns who performed three.


title: Brahmin

text: According to Abraham Eraly, "Brahmin as a varna hardly had any presence in historical records before the Gupta Empire era" (3rd century to 6th century CE), when Buddhism dominated the land. "No Brahmin, no sacrifice, no ritualistic act of any kind ever, even once, is referred to" in any Indian texts between third century BCE and the late first century CE. He also states that "The absence of literary and material evidence, however, does not mean that Brahmanical culture did not exist at that time, but only that it had no elite patronage and was largely confined to rural folk, and therefore went unrecorded in history". Their role as priests and repository of sacred knowledge, as well as their importance in the practice of Vedic Shrauta rituals, grew during the Gupta Empire era and thereafter.


title: Brahmin

text: However, the knowledge about actual history of Brahmins or other varnas of Hinduism in and after the first millennium is fragmentary and preliminary, with little that is from verifiable records or archeological evidence, and much that is constructed from ahistorical Sanskrit works and fiction. Michael Witzel writes,


title: Brahmin

text: Historical records, state scholars, suggest that Brahmin varna was not limited to a particular status or priest and the teaching profession. Chanakya, a Brahmin born in 375 BCE, was an ancient Indian polymath who was active as a teacher, author, strategist, philosopher, economist, jurist, royal advisor, who assisted the first Mauryan emperor Chandragupta Maurya in his rise to power and is widely credited for having played an important role in the establishment of the Maurya Empire. Historical records from mid 1st millennium CE and later, suggest Brahmins were agriculturalists and warriors in medieval India, quite often instead of as exception. Donkin and other scholars state that Hoysala Empire records frequently mention Brahmin merchants "carried on trade in horses, elephants and pearls" and transported goods throughout medieval India before the 14th-century.


title: Brahmin

text: The Pali Canon depicts Brahmins as the most prestigious and elite non-Buddhist figures. They mention them parading their learning. The Pali Canon and other Buddhist texts such as the "Jataka Tales" also record the livelihood of Brahmins to have included being farmers, handicraft workers and artisans such as carpentry and architecture. Buddhist sources extensively attest, state Greg Bailey and Ian Mabbett, that Brahmins were "supporting themselves not by religious practice, but employment in all manner of secular occupations", in the classical period of India. Some of the Brahmin occupations mentioned in the Buddhist texts such as "Jatakas" and "Sutta Nipata" are very lowly. The "Dharmasutras" too mention Brahmin farmers.


title: Brahmin

text: According to Haidar and Sardar, unlike the Mughal Empire in Northern India, Brahmins figured prominently in the administration of Deccan Sultanates. Under Golconda Sultanate Telugu Niyogi Brahmins served in many different roles such as accountants, ministers, revenue administration and in judicial service. The Deccan sultanates also heavily recruited Marathi Brahmins at different levels of their administration. During the days of Maratha Empire in the 17th and 18th century, the occupation of Marathi Brahmins ranged from being state administrators, being warriors to being de facto rulers as Peshwa.


title: Brahmin

text: After the collapse of Maratha empire, Brahmins in Maharashtra region were quick to take advantage of opportunities opened up by the new British rulers. They were the first community to take up Western education and therefore dominated lower level of British administration in the 19th century. Similarly, the Tamil Brahmins were also quick to take up English education during British colonial rule and dominate government service and law.


title: Brahmin

text: Eric Bellman states that during the Islamic Mughal Empire era Brahmins served as advisers to the Mughals, later to the British Raj. The East India Company also recruited sepoys (soldiers) from the Brahmin communities of Bihar and Awadh (in the present day Uttar Pradesh) for the Bengal army. Many Brahmins, in other parts of South Asia lived like other varna, engaged in all sorts of professions. Among Nepalese Hindus, for example, Niels Gutschow and Axel Michaels report the actual observed professions of Brahmins from 18th- to early 20th-century included being temple priests, minister, merchants, farmers, potters, masons, carpenters, coppersmiths, stone workers, barbers, gardeners among others.


title: Brahmin

text: Other 20th-century surveys, such as in the state of Uttar Pradesh, recorded that the primary occupation of almost all Brahmin families surveyed was neither priestly nor Vedas-related, but like other varnas, ranged from crop farming (80 per cent of Brahmins), dairy, service, labour such as cooking, and other occupations. The survey reported that the Brahmin families involved in agriculture as their primary occupation in modern times plough the land themselves, many supplementing their income by selling their labor services to other farmers.


title: Brahmin

text: Many of the prominent thinkers and earliest champions of the Bhakti movement were Brahmins, a movement that encouraged a direct relationship of an individual with a personal god. Among the many Brahmins who nurtured the Bhakti movement were Ramanuja, Nimbarka, Vallabha and Madhvacharya of Vaishnavism, Ramananda, another devotional poet sant. Born in a Brahmin family, Ramananda welcomed everyone to spiritual pursuits without discriminating anyone by gender, class, caste or religion (such as Muslims). He composed his spiritual message in poems, using widely spoken vernacular language rather than Sanskrit, to make it widely accessible. The Hindu tradition recognises him as the founder of the Hindu Ramanandi Sampradaya, the largest monastic renunciant community in Asia in modern times.


title: Brahmin

text: Other medieval era Brahmins who led spiritual movement without social or gender discrimination included Andal (9th-century female poet), Basava (12th-century Lingayatism), Dnyaneshwar (13th-century Bhakti poet), Vallabha Acharya (16th-century Vaishnava poet), Chaitanya Mahaprabhu(14th-century Vaishnava saint) were among others.


title: Brahmin

text: Many 18th and 19th century Brahmins are credited with religious movements that criticised idolatry. For example, the Brahmins Raja Ram Mohan Roy led Brahmo Samaj and Dayananda Saraswati led the Arya Samaj.


title: Brahmin

text: The term Brahmin appears extensively in ancient and medieval Sutras and commentary texts of Buddhism and Jainism.


title: Brahmin

text: Modern scholars state that such usage of the term Brahmin in ancient texts does not imply a caste, but simply "masters" (experts), guardian, recluse, preacher or guide of any tradition. An alternate synonym for Brahmin in the Buddhist and other non-Hindu tradition is "Mahano".


title: Brahmin

text: Some Brahmins formed an influential group in Burmese Buddhist kingdoms in 18th- and 19th-century. The court Brahmins were locally called "Punna". During the Konbaung dynasty, Buddhist kings relied on their court Brahmins to consecrate them to kingship in elaborate ceremonies, and to help resolve political questions. This role of Hindu Brahmins in a Buddhist kingdom, states Leider, may have been because Hindu texts provide guidelines for such social rituals and political ceremonies, while Buddhist texts do not.


title: Brahmin

text: The Brahmins were also consulted in the transmission, development and maintenance of law and justice system outside India. Hindu Dharmasastras, particularly Manusmriti written by the Prajapati Manu, states Anthony Reid, were "greatly honored in Burma (Myanmar), Siam (Thailand), Cambodia and Java-Bali (Indonesia) as the defining documents of law and order, which kings were obliged to uphold. They were copied, translated and incorporated into local law code, with strict adherence to the original text in Burma and Siam, and a stronger tendency to adapt to local needs in Java (Indonesia)".


title: Brahmin

text: The mythical origins of Cambodia are credited to a Brahmin prince named Kaundinya, who arrived by sea, married a Naga princess living in the flooded lands. Kaudinya founded Kambuja-desa, or Kambuja (transliterated to Kampuchea or Cambodia). Kaundinya introduced Hinduism, particularly Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Harihara (half Vishnu, half Shiva), and these ideas grew in southeast Asia in the 1st millennium CE.


title: Brahmin

text: Brahmins have been part of the Royal tradition of Thailand, particularly for the consecration and to mark annual land fertility rituals of Buddhist kings. A small Brahmanical temple Devasathan, established in 1784 by King Rama I of Thailand, has been managed by ethnically Thai Brahmins ever since. The temple hosts "Phra Phikhanesuan" (Ganesha), "Phra Narai" (Narayana, Vishnu), "Phra Itsuan" (Shiva), Uma, Brahma, Indra ("Sakka") and other Hindu deities. The tradition asserts that the Thai Brahmins have roots in Hindu holy city of Varanasi and southern state of Tamil Nadu, go by the title "Pandita", and the various annual rites and state ceremonies they conduct has been a blend of Buddhist and Hindu rituals. The coronation ceremony of the Thai king is almost entirely conducted by the royal Brahmins.


title: Brahmin

text: According to 2007 reports, Brahmins in India are about five percent of its total population. The Himalayan states of Uttarakhand (20%) and Himachal Pradesh (14%) have the highest percentage of Brahmin population relative to respective state's total Hindus.


title: Brahmin

text: According to the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, in 2004 about 65% of Brahmin households in India earned less than $100 a month compared to 89% of Scheduled Tribes, 91% of Scheduled Castes and 86% of Muslims.


title: The Kite Runner

text: The Kite Runner is the first novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of Afghanistan's monarchy through the Soviet invasion, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Hosseini has commented that he considers "The Kite Runner" to be a father-son relationship story, emphasizing the familial aspects of the narrative, an element that he continued to use in his later works. Themes of guilt and redemption feature prominently in the novel, with a pivotal scene depicting an act of sexual assault inflicted upon Amir's friend Hassan, which Amir fails to prevent, and which ends their friendship. The latter half of the book centers on Amir's attempts to atone for this transgression by rescuing Hassan's son two decades later.


title: The Kite Runner

text: "The Kite Runner" became a bestseller after being printed in paperback and was popularized in book clubs. It appeared on the "New York Times" bestseller list for over two years, with over seven million copies sold in the United States. Reviews were generally positive, though parts of the plot drew significant controversy in Afghanistan. A number of adaptations were created following publication, including a 2007 film of the same name, several stage performances, and a graphic novel. The novel is also available in a multi-CD audiobook read by the author.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Khaled Hosseini lived and worked as a medical internist at Kaiser Hospital in Mountain View, California for several years before publishing "The Kite Runner". In 1999, Hosseini learned through a news report that the Taliban had banned kite flying in Afghanistan, a restriction he found particularly cruel. The news "struck a personal chord" for him, as he had grown up with the sport while living in Afghanistan. He was motivated to write a 25-page short story about two boys who fly kites in Kabul. Hosseini submitted copies to "Esquire" and "The New Yorker", both of which rejected it. He rediscovered the manuscript in his garage in March 2001 and began to expand it to novel format at the suggestion of a friend. According to Hosseini, the narrative became "much darker" than he originally intended. His editor, Cindy Spiegel, "helped him rework the last third of his manuscript", something she describes as relatively common for a first novel.


title: The Kite Runner

text: As with Hosseini's subsequent novels, "The Kite Runner" covers a multigenerational period and focuses on the relationship between parents and their children. The latter was unintentional; Hosseini developed an interest in the theme while in the process of writing. He later divulged that he frequently came up with pieces of the plot by drawing pictures of it. For example, he did not decide to make Amir and Hassan brothers until after he had "doodled it".


title: The Kite Runner

text: Like Amir, the protagonist of the novel, Hosseini was born in Afghanistan and left the country as a youth, not returning until 2003. Thus, he was frequently questioned about the extent of the autobiographical aspects of the book. In response, he said, "When I say some of it is me, then people look unsatisfied. The parallels are pretty obvious, but ... I left a few things ambiguous because I wanted to drive the book clubs crazy." Having left the country around the time of the Soviet invasion, he felt a certain amount of survivor's guilt: "Whenever I read stories about Afghanistan my reaction was always tinged with guilt. A lot of my childhood friends had a very hard time. Some of our cousins died. One died in a fuel truck trying to escape Afghanistan [an incident that Hosseini fictionalizes in "The Kite Runner"]. Talk about guilt. He was one of the kids I grew up with flying kites. His father was shot." Regardless, he maintains that the plot is fictional. Later, when writing his second novel, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" (then titled "Dreaming in Titanic City"), Hosseini remarked that he was happy that the main characters were women as it "should put the end to the autobiographical question once and for all."


title: The Kite Runner

text: Riverhead Books published "The Kite Runner", ordering an initial printing of 50,000 copies in hardback. It was released on May 29, 2003, and the paperback edition was released a year later. Hosseini took a year-long absence from practicing medicine to promote the book, signing copies, speaking at various events, and raising funds for Afghan causes. Originally published in English, "The Kite Runner" was later translated into 42 languages for publication in 38 countries. In 2013, Riverhead released the 10th anniversary edition with a new gold-rimmed cover and a foreword by Hosseini. That same year, on May 21, Khaled Hosseini published another book called "And the Mountains Echoed".


title: The Kite Runner

text: Amir, a well-to-do Pashtun boy, and Hassan, a Hazara boy who is the son of Ali, Amir's father's servant, spend their days kite fighting in the hitherto peaceful city of Kabul. Flying kites was a way to escape the horrific reality the two boys were living in. Hassan is a successful "kite runner" for Amir; he knows where the kite will land without watching it. Both boys are motherless: Amir's mother died in childbirth, while Hassan's mother, Sanaubar, simply abandoned him and Ali. Amir's father, a wealthy merchant Amir affectionately refers to as "Baba," loves both boys. He makes a point of buying Hassan exactly the same things as Amir, to Amir's annoyance. He even pays to have Hassan's cleft lip surgically corrected. On the other hand, Baba is often critical of Amir, considering him weak and lacking in courage, even threatening to physically punish him when he complains about Hassan. Amir finds a kinder fatherly figure in Rahim Khan, Baba's closest friend, who understands him and supports his interest in writing, whereas Baba considers that interest to be worthy only of females. In a rare moment, when Amir is sitting on Baba's lap rather than being shooed away as a bother, he asks why his father drinks alcohol, which is forbidden by Islam. Baba tells him that the Mullahs are hypocrites and the only real sin is theft which takes many forms, the worst being having an affair.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Assef, an older boy with a sadistic taste for violence, regularly mocks Amir for socializing with a Hazara which, according to him, whose members belong only in Hazarajat. Assef is himself only half Pashtun, having a German mother. One day, he prepares to attack Amir with brass knuckles, but Hassan defends Amir, threatening to shoot out Assef's eye with his slingshot. Assef backs off but swears to take revenge one day.


title: The Kite Runner

text: One triumphant day, Amir wins the local kite-fighting tournament and finally earns Baba's praise. Hassan runs for the last cut kite, a great trophy, saying to Amir, "For you, a thousand times over." However, after finding the kite, Hassan encounters Assef in an alleyway. Hassan refuses to give up the kite, and Assef humiliates him by assaulting him both physically and sexually. Amir witnesses the act but is too scared to intervene. He knows that if he fails to bring home the kite, Baba would be less proud of him, so he runs away. Amir feels incredibly guilty but knows his cowardice would destroy any hopes for Baba's affections, so he keeps quiet about the incident. Afterwards, Amir keeps distant from Hassan; his feelings of guilt prevent him from interacting with the boy. Hassan's mental and physical well-being begin to deteriorate as a result, but he still tries to interact with Amir.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Amir begins to believe that life would be easier if Hassan were not around, so he plants his watch and some birthday money under Hassan's mattress in the hope that Baba will make him leave; Hassan falsely confesses when confronted by Baba. Although Baba believes "there is no act more wretched than stealing", he forgives him. To Baba's sorrow, Hassan and Ali leave anyway, because Hassan has told Ali what happened to him. Amir is freed of the daily reminder of his cowardice and betrayal, but he still lives in their shadow.


title: The Kite Runner

text: In 1979, five years later, the Soviet Union militarily intervened in Afghanistan. Baba and Amir escape to Peshawar, Pakistan, and then to Fremont, California, where they settle in a run-down apartment. Baba begins work at a gas station due to his low social status in America. After graduating from high school, Amir takes classes at San Jose State University to develop his writing skills. Every Sunday, Baba and Amir make extra money selling used goods at a flea market in San Jose. There, Amir meets fellow refugee Soraya Taheri and her family. Baba is diagnosed with terminal cancer but is still capable of granting Amir one last favor: he asks Soraya's father's permission for Amir to marry her. He agrees and the two marry. Shortly after, Baba dies peacefully. Amir and Soraya settle down in a happy marriage, but to their sorrow, they learn that they cannot have children.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Amir embarks on a successful career as a novelist. Fifteen years after his wedding, Amir receives a call from Rahim Khan. Rahim Khan, who is dying, asks Amir to visit him in Peshawar. He enigmatically tells Amir, "There is a way to be good again."


title: The Kite Runner

text: From Rahim Khan, Amir learns that Hassan and Ali are both dead. Ali was killed by a land mine, and Hassan was murdered (along with his wife Farzana) after he refused to allow the Taliban to confiscate Baba and Amir's house in Kabul. Rahim Khan further reveals that Ali was sterile and was not Hassan's biological father. Hassan was actually the son of Sanaubar and Baba, making him Amir's half brother. Finally, Rahim Khan tells Amir that the reason he has called Amir to Pakistan is to ask him to find and rescue Hassan's son, Sohrab, from an orphanage in Kabul.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Amir searches for Sohrab, accompanied by Farid, an Afghan taxi driver and veteran of the war with the Soviets. They learn that a Taliban official comes to the orphanage often, brings cash, and usually takes a girl away with him. Occasionally he chooses a boy, recently Sohrab. The orphanage director tells Amir how to find the official, and Farid secures an appointment at his home by claiming to have "personal business" with him.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Amir meets the Taliban leader, who reveals himself as Assef. Sohrab is being kept at Assef's house as a dancing boy. Assef agrees to relinquish him if Amir can escape the room alive. Assef then badly beats Amir with his brass knuckles, breaking several bones and splitting his lip, until Sohrab uses a slingshot to fire a brass ball into Assef's left eye, saving Amir and carrying out Hassan's threat from long ago. Sohrab helps Amir out of the house, where he passes out and wakes up in a hospital.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Amir tells Sohrab of his plans to take him back to America and possibly adopt him. However, American authorities demand evidence of Sohrab's orphan status. Amir tells Sohrab that he may have to go back to an orphanage for a little while as they have encountered a problem in the adoption process, and Sohrab, terrified about returning to an orphanage, attempts suicide via drowning. Amir eventually manages to take him back to the United States with the help of Soraya. After his adoption, Sohrab refuses to interact with Amir or Soraya until Amir reminisces about Hassan and kites and shows off some of Hassan's tricks one day. After Amir helps Sohrab win his first kite fight, Sohrab only gives a lopsided smile, but Amir takes it with all his heart as he runs the kite for Sohrab, saying, "For you, a thousand times over" like Hassan did many years ago.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Amir (named Amir Qadiri in 2007 film adaptation, surname is not given in book) is the protagonist and narrator of the novel. Khaled Hosseini acknowledged that the character is "an unlikable coward who failed to come to the aid of his best friend" for much of the duration of the story; consequently, Hosseini chose to create sympathy for Amir through circumstances rather than the personality he was given until the last third of the book. Born into a Pashtun family in 1963, his mother died while giving birth to him. As a child, he enjoys storytelling and is encouraged by Rahim Khan to become a well-known writer. At age 18, he and his father flee to America following the Soviet Military invasion of Afghanistan, where he pursues his dream of being a writer.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Assef is the main antagonist of the novel. He is the son of a Pashtun father and a German mother, and believes that Pashtuns are superior to Hazaras, although he himself is not a full Pashtun. He is described as a "sociopath" by Amir.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Khaled Hosseini identifies a number of themes that appear in "The Kite Runner", but reviewers have focused on guilt and redemption. As a child, Amir fails to save Hassan in an act of cowardice and afterwards suffers from an all-consuming guilt. Even after leaving the country, moving to America, marrying, and becoming a successful writer, he is unable to forget the incident. Hassan is "the all-sacrificing Christ-figure, the one who, even in death, calls Amir to redemption". Following Hassan's death at the hands of the Taliban, Amir begins to redeem himself through the rescue of Hassan's son, Sohrab. Hosseini draws parallels during the search for Sohrab to create an impression of poetic justice; for example, Amir sustains a split lip after being severely beaten, similar to Hassan's harelip. Despite this, some critics questioned whether the protagonist had fully redeemed himself.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Amir's motivation for the childhood betrayal is rooted in his insecurities regarding his relationship with his father. The relationship between parents and their children features prominently in the novel, and in an interview, Hosseini elaborated:


title: The Kite Runner

text: When adapting "The Kite Runner" for the theatre, Director Eric Rose stated that he was drawn into the narrative by the "themes of betraying your best friend for the love of your father", which he compared to Shakespearean literature. Throughout the story, Amir craves his father's affection; his father, in turn, loves Amir but favors Hassan, going as far as to pay for plastic surgery to repair the latter's cleft lip.


title: The Kite Runner

text: In the first two years following its publication, over 70,000 hardback copies of "The Kite Runner" were sold along with 1,250,000 paperback copies. Though the book sold well in hardback, ""Kite Runner's" popularity didn't really begin to soar until [2004] when the paperback edition came out, which is when book clubs began picking it up." It started appearing on best seller lists in September 2004 and became a "New York Times" bestseller in March 2005, maintaining its place on the list for two years. By the publication of Khaled Hosseini's third novel in 2013, over seven million copies had been sold in the United States. The book received the South African Boeke Prize in 2004. It was voted the Reading Group Book of the Year for 2006 and 2007 and headed a list of 60 titles submitted by entrants to the Penguin/Orange Reading Group prize (UK).


title: The Kite Runner

text: Critically, the book was well-received, albeit controversial. Erika Milvy from "Salon" praised it as "beautifully written, startling and heart wrenching". Tony Sims from "Wired Magazine" wrote that the book "reveals the beauty and agony of a tormented nation as it tells the story of an improbable friendship between two boys from opposite ends of society, and of the troubled but enduring relationship between a father and a son". Amelia Hill of "The Observer" opined, ""The Kite Runner" is the shattering first novel by Khaled Hosseini" that "is simultaneously devastating and inspiring." A similarly favourable review was printed in "Publishers Weekly". Marketing director Melissa Mytinger remarked, "It's simply an excellent story. Much of it based in a world we don't know, a world we're barely beginning to know. Well-written, published at the 'right time' by an author who is both charming and thoughtful in his personal appearances for the book." Indian-American actor Aasif Mandvi agreed that the book was "amazing storytelling. ... It's about human beings. It's about redemption, and redemption is a powerful theme." First Lady Laura Bush commended the story as "really great". Said Tayeb Jawad, the 19th Afghan ambassador to the United States, publicly endorsed "The Kite Runner", saying that the book would help the American public to better understand Afghan society and culture.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Edward Hower from "The New York Times" analyzed the portrayal of Afghanistan before and after the Taliban:


title: The Kite Runner

text: Meghan O'Rouke, "Slate Magazine"'s culture critic and advisory editor, ultimately found "The Kite Runner" mediocre, writing that "this is a novel simultaneously striving to deliver a large-scale informative portrait and to stage a small-scale redemptive drama, but its therapeutic allegory of recovery can only undermine its realist ambitions. People experience their lives against the backdrop of their culture, and while Hosseini wisely steers clear of merely exoticizing Afghanistan as a monolithically foreign place, he does so much work to make his novel emotionally accessible to the American reader that there is almost no room, in the end, for us to consider for long what might differentiate Afghans and Americans." Sarah Smith from "The Guardian" thought the novel started out well but began to falter towards the end. She felt that Hosseini was too focused on fully redeeming the protagonist in Part III and in doing so created too many unrealistic coincidences that allowed Amir the opportunity to undo his past wrongs.


title: The Kite Runner

text: The American Library Association reported that "The Kite Runner" was one of its most-challenged books of 2008, with multiple attempts to remove it from libraries due to its "offensive language, sexually explicit [content], and unsuit[ability for] age group." Afghan American readers were particularly critical towards the depiction of Pashtuns as oppressors and Hazaras as the oppressed. Hosseini responded in an interview, "They never say I am speaking about things that are untrue. Their beef is, 'Why do you have to talk about these things and embarrass us? Don't you love your country?'" Afghan-Austrian journalist Emran Feroz, however, criticized the novel for oversimplifying ethnic relations in Afghanistan and portraying Pashtuns in general in an overly negative light. Feroz further expressed concern that works by Hosseini, who was raised in a culturally Tajik context rather than Pashtun, would prevent western readers from developing a more nuanced view of Afghanistan.


title: The Kite Runner

text: The film generated more controversy through the 30-second rape scene, with threats made against the child actors, who originated from Afghanistan. Zekeria Ebrahimi, the 12-year-old actor who portrayed Amir, had to be removed from school after his Hazara classmates threatened to kill him, and Paramount Pictures was eventually forced to relocate three of the children to the United Arab Emirates. Afghanistan's Ministry of Culture banned the film from distribution in cinemas or DVD stores, citing the possibility that the movie's ethnically charged rape scene could incite racial violence within Afghanistan.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Four years after its publication, "The Kite Runner" was adapted as a motion picture starring Khalid Abdalla as Amir, Homayoun Ershadi as Baba, and Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada as Hassan. It was initially scheduled to premiere in November 2007, but the release date was pushed back six weeks to evacuate the Afghan child stars from the country after they received death threats. Directed by Marc Forster and with a screenplay by David Benioff, the movie won numerous awards and was nominated for an Academy Award, the BAFTA Film Award, and the Critics Choice Award in 2008. While reviews were generally positive, with "Entertainment Weekly" deeming the final product "pretty good", the depiction of ethnic tensions and the controversial rape scene drew outrage in Afghanistan. Hangama Anwari, the child rights commissioner for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, commented, "They should not play around with the lives and security of people. The Hazara people will take it as an insult."


title: The Kite Runner

text: Hosseini was surprised by the extent of the controversy caused by the rape scene and said that Afghan actors would not have been cast had studios known that their lives would be threatened. He believed that the scene was necessary to "maintain the integrity" of the story, as a physical assault by itself would not have affected the audience as much.


title: The Kite Runner

text: The novel was first adapted to the stage in March 2007 by Bay Area playwright Matthew Spangler where it was performed at San Jose State University. Two years later, David Ira Goldstein, artistic director of Arizona Theater Company, organized for it to be performed at San Jose Repertory Theatre. The play was produced at Arizona Theatre Company in 2009, Actor's Theatre of Louisville and Cleveland Play House in 2010, and The New Repertory Theatre of Watertown, Massachusetts in 2012. The theatre adaption premiered in Canada as a co-production between Theatre Calgary and the Citadel Theatre in January 2013. In April 2013, the play premiered in Europe at the Nottingham Playhouse, with Ben Turner acting in the lead role.


title: The Kite Runner

text: Hosseini was approached by Piemme, his Italian publisher, about adapting "The Kite Runner" to a graphic novel in 2011. Having been "a fan of comic books since childhood", he was open to the idea, believing that "The Kite Runner" was a good candidate to be presented in a visual format. Fabio Celoni provided the illustrations for the project and regularly updated Hosseini on his progress before its release in September of that year. The latter was pleased with the final product and said, "I believe Fabio Celoni's work vividly brings to life not only the mountains, the bazaars, the city of Kabul and its kite-dotted skies, but also the many struggles, conflicts, and emotional highs and lows of Amir's journey."


title: The Kite Runner

text: "The Kite Runner" was also an inspiration for the creation of the Kite Runner project in Istanbul, an initiative of the association Diyalog in cooperation with International Media Support (IMS). This project started in 2022 with the purpose of providing journalistic skills and media culture to journalists from Afghanistan, as well as legal advice and language courses. The project is planned in a way that every person in the globe can take part in the workshops, social events and network building through online participation. The main objective of this project is to serve as social gathering, networking booster and a platform to professionalising media skills while promoting intercultural understanding between borders.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: L.A. Confidential is a 1997 American neo-noir crime film directed, produced, and co-written by Curtis Hanson. The screenplay by Hanson and Brian Helgeland is based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel of the same name, the third book in his "L.A. Quartet" series. The film tells the story of a group of LAPD officers in 1953, and the intersection of police corruption and Hollywood celebrity. The title refers to the 1950s scandal magazine "Confidential", portrayed in the film as "Hush-Hush".


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: At the time, Australian actors Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe were relatively unknown in North America. One of the film's backers, Peter Dennett, was worried about the lack of established stars in the lead roles, but supported Hanson's casting decisions, and the director had the confidence also to recruit Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, and Danny DeVito.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: "L.A. Confidential" was a critical and commercial success. It grossed $126 million against a $35 million budget and received acclaim from critics, with praise for the acting, writing, directing, editing, and Jerry Goldsmith's musical score. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning two: Best Supporting Actress (Basinger) and Best Adapted Screenplay; "Titanic" won in every other category "L.A. Confidential" was nominated for. In 2015, the Library of Congress selected "L.A. Confidential" for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: In 1953 Los Angeles, LAPD Sergeant Edmund Exley is determined to live up to the reputation of his father, famed detective Preston Exley, who was killed by an unknown assailant whom Exley secretly nicknamed "Rollo Tomasi", his prototype of "the guy who gets away with it." He volunteers to testify against corrupt police officers involved in the "Bloody Christmas" case in exchange for promotion to Detective Lieutenant, against the advice of precinct captain Dudley Smith.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Plainclothes Officer Wendell "Bud" White is obsessed with punishing men who abuse women, his own mother having been beaten to death by his father. White hates Exley because his partner, Dick Stensland, was fired thanks to Exley's testimony. With gangster Mickey Cohen imprisoned for tax evasion, Smith recruits White to torture and frighten away out-of-town criminals trying to gain a foothold in Los Angeles. While at a liquor store, White also encounters Lynn Bracken, a prostitute resembling Veronica Lake, and former cop Leland "Buzz" Meeks. Both work for Pierce Patchett, whose "Fleur-de-Lis" service runs high-end prostitutes altered by plastic surgery to resemble film stars.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Sergeant Jack Vincennes is a narcotics detective who moonlights as a technical advisor on "Badge of Honor", a TV police drama series. Sid Hudgens, publisher of the "Hush-Hush" tabloid magazine, tips Vincennes on celebrity criminal activity so that he can make high-profile arrests for Sid's publication.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Exley soon investigates a robbery and multiple homicide at the "Nite Owl" coffee shop. Stensland was one of the victims. Exley and Vincennes arrest three African-American felons for the crime; they later escape from police custody and are killed by Exley in a shootout. Exley is decorated for bravery. Although the Nite Owl case appears solved, Exley and White investigate further, discovering evidence of corruption all around them. White begins a relationship with Lynn, and recognizes Nite Owl victim Susan Lefferts as one of Patchett's escorts. Lefferts' mother tells White that Stensland was Susan's "boyfriend"; White searches the crawl space under the mother's house and finds Meeks' corpse. He then interrogates Johnny Stompanato, Cohen's ex-bodyguard, who says Meeks was trying to sell a large stash of heroin he had stolen.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Hudgens involves Vincennes in setting up a homosexual tryst between struggling actor Matt Reynolds and District Attorney Ellis Loew, intending to create a lucrative scandal. After Reynolds is found murdered, a guilt-ridden Vincennes joins Exley's investigation to find the killer. Vincennes later confronts Smith with evidence that Meeks and Stensland worked together under Smith's command a decade earlier, and dropped an investigation on Patchett, who had Hudgens photographing businessmen with prostitutes in a blackmail scam. Smith shoots Vincennes, who dies after murmuring "Rollo Tomasi".


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: The next day, Exley's suspicions are aroused when Smith asks him who "Rollo Tomasi" is. While interrogating Hudgens, Smith arranges for White to see photos of Lynn having sex with Exley, which sends an enraged White to find him. At the police station, White and Exley fight, but stop when both realize that Smith is corrupt. They deduce that Stensland killed Meeks over the stolen heroin, and that the Nite Owl killings were to allow Smith to kill Stensland. Smith's men framed the three African-Americans for the Nite Owl murders with planted evidence. Exley and White interrogate Loew and learn that Smith and Patchett (aided by Hudgens' blackmail photos) have been taking over Cohen's criminal empire, and that the killings were because of Smith tying up loose ends. They later find Patchett and Hudgens murdered.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Smith lures Exley and White into an ambush. After the pair kill Smith's hitmen in a gunfight, White and Smith wound each other. As Exley holds Smith at gunpoint, Smith assures him that he can "explain" everything to the arriving police and Exley will be promoted. Smith walks away toward the newly gathered squad cars, but Exley shoots him in the back, killing him.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: At the police station, Exley explains what he, Vincennes and White learned about Smith's corruption. The LAPD decides to protect their image by saying Smith died a hero in the shootout, while awarding Exley a second medal for bravery. Outside city hall, Exley says goodbye to Lynn and White before watching them drive off to Lynn's home in Arizona.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Curtis Hanson had read half a dozen of James Ellroy's books before "L.A. Confidential" and was drawn to its characters, not the plot. He said, "What hooked me on them was that, as I met them, one after the other, I didn't like them—but as I continued reading, I started to care about them." Ellroy's novel also made Hanson think about Los Angeles and provided him with an opportunity to "set a movie at a point in time when the whole dream of Los Angeles, from that apparently golden era of the '20s and '30s, was being bulldozed."


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Screenwriter Brian Helgeland was originally signed to Warner Bros. to write a Viking film with director Uli Edel and then worked on an unproduced modern-day King Arthur story. Helgeland was a longtime fan of Ellroy's novels. When he heard that Warner Bros. had acquired the rights to "L.A. Confidential" in 1990, he lobbied to script the film, but the studio was then talking only to well-known screenwriters. When he finally got a meeting, it was canceled two days before it was to occur.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Helgeland found that Hanson had been hired to direct and met with him while the filmmaker was making "The River Wild". They found that they not only shared a love for Ellroy's fiction but also agreed on how to adapt "Confidential" into a film. According to Helgeland, they had to "remove every scene from the book that didn't have the three main cops in it, and then to work from those scenes out." According to Hanson, he "wanted the audience to be challenged but at the same time I didn't want them to get lost." They worked on the script together for two years, with Hanson turning down jobs and Helgeland writing seven drafts for free.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: The two men also got Ellroy's approval. He had seen Hanson's films "The Bedroom Window" and "Bad Influence", and found him "a competent and interesting storyteller", but was not convinced that his book would be made into a film until he talked to the eventual director. He later said, "They preserved the basic integrity of the book and its main theme. Brian and Curtis took a work of fiction that had eight plotlines, reduced those to three, and retained the dramatic force of three men working out their destiny."


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Warner executive Bill Gerber showed the script to Michael Nathanson, CEO of New Regency Productions, which had a deal with the studio. Nathanson loved it, but they had to get the approval of New Regency's owner, Arnon Milchan. Hanson prepared a presentation that consisted of 15 vintage postcards and pictures of L.A. mounted on posterboards, and made his pitch to Milchan. The pictures consisted of orange groves, beaches, tract homes in the San Fernando Valley, and the opening of the Hollywood Freeway to symbolize the image of prosperity sold to the public.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: In the pitch, Hanson showed the darker side of Ellroy's novel by presenting the cover of scandal rag "Confidential" and the famous shot of Robert Mitchum coming out of jail after his marijuana bust. He also had photographs of jazz musicians Zoot Sims, Gerry Mulligan, and Chet Baker to represent the popular music of the time. Hanson emphasized that the period detail would be in the background and the characters in the foreground. Milchan was impressed with his presentation and agreed to finance it.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Hanson had seen Russell Crowe in "Romper Stomper" and found him "repulsive and scary, but captivating". The actor had read Ellroy's "The Black Dahlia" but not "L.A. Confidential". When he read the script, Crowe was drawn to Bud White's "self-righteous moral crusade". Crowe fit the visual preconception of Bud. Hanson put the actor on tape doing a few scenes from the script and showed it to the film's producers, who agreed to cast him as Bud.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Guy Pearce auditioned, and Hanson felt that he "was very much what I had in mind for Ed Exley." The director purposely did not watch the actor in "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", afraid that it might influence his decision. As he did with Crowe, Hanson taped Pearce and showed it to the producers, who agreed he should be cast as Ed. Pearce did not like Ed when he first read the screenplay and remarked, "I was pretty quick to judge him and dislike him for being so self-righteous ... But I liked how honest he became about himself. I knew I could grow to respect and understand him."


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Milchan was against casting "two Australians" in the American period piece (Pearce wryly noted in a later interview that while he and Crowe grew up in Australia, he was born in England to a New Zealand father, while the Māori Crowe is a New Zealander too). Crowe and Pearce were also relative unknowns in North America, and Milchan was equally worried about the lack of film stars in the lead roles. But he supported Hanson's casting decisions and this gave the director the confidence to approach Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito and Kevin Spacey. Hanson cast Crowe and Pearce because he wanted to "replicate my experience of the book. You don't like any of these characters at first, but the deeper you get into their story, the more you begin to sympathize with them. I didn't want actors audiences knew and already liked."


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: A third Australian actor unknown to American audiences at the time, Simon Baker, later to star in the TV series "The Mentalist", was cast in the smaller but noteworthy role of Matt Reynolds, a doomed young bisexual actor. He was billed as Simon Baker Denny in the film's credits.


title: L.A. Confidential (film)

text: Hanson felt that the character of Jack Vincennes was "a movie star among cops", and thought of Spacey, with his "movie-star charisma," casting him specifically against type. The director was confident that the actor "could play the man behind that veneer, the man who also lost his soul," and when he gave him the script, he told him to think of Dean Martin while in the role. Hanson cast Basinger because he felt that she "was the character to me. What beauty today could project the glamor of Hollywood's golden age?"