title: Sean Rad

text: Rad served as Tinder's CEO from 2012 until March 2015 and then again from August 2015 until December 2016. From March to August 2015, Rad was replaced as CEO by former Ebay executive, Christopher Payne. During this time, Rad served as president and head of product and marketing. Rad returned as CEO in August 2015 and remained in the role until December 2016, when he was replaced by Match Group's CEO Greg Blatt. Rad remained Tinder's Chairman of the Board until late 2017. In 2017, Rad left Tinder over an RSU (restricted stock unit) valuation dispute and in 2018 he filed a $2 billion dollar lawsuit against Tinder's parent company, IAC.


title: Sean Rad

text: In 2018, Rad and Claire Schmidt co-founded AllVoices. AllVoices is an app that allows employees to anonymously report harassment, ethics, compliance, and other workplace issues directly to a company's board. AllVoices was developed by Rad and former vice president of technology and innovation at 20th Century Fox Claire Schmidt in response to rampant complaints of sexual harassment in the technology and entertainment industries. After submitting a report, users are notified when the company receives the information and when or if the company acts upon that report.


title: Sean Rad

text: Rad is a Founding Board Member of Good Today, a non-profit organization that promotes daily support of various charitable organizations. The app allows users to make daily donations of as little as 25 cents and offers company sponsorships for employees who donate through the app.


title: Sean Rad

text: Rad was included on the Forbes "30 Under 30" list in 2014. Rad was also recognized by Fast Company as one of the "Most Creative People" in the business community. In May 2016, Rad received an honoree diploma from University of Southern California and delivered the 2016 USC Marshall School of Business undergraduate commencement speech. Also in 2016, Rad accepted a Webby Award for Tinder. In 2017, Rad was honored as a "30 Under 30" by the Jewish Journal. In 2020, Rad was again recognized by Forbes as one of the "Top 10 Under 30 Founders" of the decade.


title: Sean Rad

text: In June 2014, Whitney Wolfe Herd filed a lawsuit against Tinder and IAC. She accused former boyfriend and co-founder Justin Mateen of sexual harassment and Rad as CEO of failing to respond to her complaints. Rad said, "Justin is nuts" when Wolfe complained to him, ignoring her and calling her emotional. Mateen was suspended from the company. The lawsuit was settled out of court without admission of guilt from either party involved.


title: Sean Rad

text: In 2015, Rad "appeared to make a veiled threat" to "Vanity Fair" reporter Nancy Jo Sales after an article she published on "hook up culture". Sales published an open letter in response to Rad. That same year, Match Group filed an 8K registration statement that Rad did not speak on behalf of the company after he disclosed inaccurate figures during an interview prior to an IPO.


title: Sean Rad

text: In 2018, Rad and other former executives and employees of Tinder sued Match Group and IAC for $2 billion arguing the company manipulated the valuation of Tinder and denied them billions of dollars. IAC and Match Group filed a motion to dismiss the case, but the appeals court upheld the trial court's decision to deny this request and a trial date was scheduled.


title: Sean Rad

text: In 2019, in a counter $250 million lawsuit by Match Group and IAC, Match said that Rad recorded "sensitive business conversations" between his superiors and colleagues without consent and copying proprietary company files to his personal devices while working at Tinder. Rad argued that his contract gave him the right to make those actions and he asked the New York Supreme Court to dismiss the lawsuit against him.


title: Sean Rad

text: In December 2021, following nearly 3 weeks in a Manhattan courtroom, Match Group announced it would pay a settlement of $441 million to Rad and other Tinder founders and executives. During the trial, Rad testified that Tinder was unfairly valued at $3 billion because Barry Diller allies shared "doom-and-gloom" numbers with outside investment banks, and that the app should have been worth at least $13.2 billion. The settlement was announced one day before Match and parent company IAC along with Tinder founders were set to give closing statements and send the case to jury deliberation. A media statement from both parties read: "The parties are pleased to announce that they have settled the valuation lawsuit presently on trial in New York Supreme Court and the related valuation arbitration." Match commented that it intends to pay the settlement using cash on hand in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.


title: Sean Rad

text: In 2018, Rad married his longtime partner, Lizzie Grover, in a ceremony at their Montecito home. The couple currently resides in Los Angeles, California with their golden retriever, Minnie. Rad and Grover-Rad are avid art collectors, and were included in Cultured Young Collectors 2020, in which their art collection was recognized as "a place for disruptors".


title: Sean Rad

text: Rad serves on the board of the Milken Community High School. In December 2021, Rad and his wife were featured in "Architectural Digest", in which they provided a tour of their professionally decorated Los Angeles home.


title: Christine Hà

text: Christine Huyen Tran Ha (; born May 9, 1979) is an American chef, writer and TV host. She is the first blind contestant of "MasterChef" and the winner of its third season in 2012.


title: Christine Hà

text: Hà was born as an only child in Los Angeles County, California. Her parents were of Vietnamese origin; they immigrated from Saigon (present day Ho Chi Minh City) to the United States in 1975 after the Vietnam War. She lived in Lakewood, California and Long Beach, California as a young child before her family moved to Houston, Texas. When Hà was 14, her mother died from lung cancer.


title: Christine Hà

text: Hà graduated with a bachelor's degree in business administration and finance along with MIS from the University of Texas at Austin. She also earned a master's of fine arts in creative fiction and nonfiction from the University of Houston's nationally acclaimed writing program.


title: Christine Hà

text: Hà has Neuromyelitis optica, in which a person's own immune system attacks the optic nerves and spinal cord. In 2004, she was diagnosed and gradually started losing her vision, and was almost completely blind by 2007. She describes her vision as "looking at a very foggy mirror after a hot shower". She uses adaptive technologies to help her manage her social media profiles by herself. Há utilizes the following assistive technologies around her house: VoiceOver, JAWS, Aira glasses, Amigo portable CCTV along with a thermometer, food scale and liquid level indicator that gives an oral reading.


title: Christine Hà

text: Hà serves as fiction editor for "Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts", and her work has appeared in "Fire Point", "The ScissorTale Review" and "PANK Magazine", among others. In January 2014, she began hosting the cooking show "Four Senses" on AMI-TV.


title: Christine Hà

text: While she has never studied cooking, in the nineteen episodes where she competed on the third season of "MasterChef", Hà won seven times in both individual and team challenges; additionally, she placed three times in the top three group. However, she was also in the bottom group twice. On September 10, 2012, Hà was announced the winner of the competition and was awarded $250,000, the "MasterChef" title, the "MasterChef" trophy, and a cookbook deal.


title: Christine Hà

text: Her cookbook, "Recipes from My Home Kitchen: Asian and American Comfort Food" (), was released on May 14, 2013.


title: Christine Hà

text: In 2013, Ha began co-hosting the Canadian TV show "Four Senses" with Carl Heinrich, the winner of Season 2 of "Top Chef Canada". It is a cooking show geared towards the visually impaired, and airs on AMI (Accessible Media, Inc.) TV, a Canadian cable network designed to make television accessible to the vision and hearing impaired. To compensate for the vision-impaired, the show contains a great deal of audio description, where they are narrating what's going on in the kitchen, what they're doing, how things feel or smell or sound.


title: Christine Hà

text: In 2015, she revealed on her blog and Facebook page that she would become a judge on the third season of "MasterChef Vietnam", having been a guest judge in the previous series, and a guest judge of US MasterChef (season 4), making her the first former contestant and winner worldwide to become a regular judge, and also one of a few female judges after Phan Tôn Tịnh Hải (also "Masterchef Vietnam"), Michal Ansky of Israel and Christina Tosi. In the meantime, she also returned along with Luca Manfé and Courtney Lapresi as guests of "US MasterChef" (season 6). Later in the year, she also made an appearance in "MasterChef Celebrity Showdown" in the battle of "Champions vs Juniors", where she, alongside Season 4 winner Luca Manfe and Season 6 winner Claudia Sandoval, cooked against 3 contestants from "MasterChef Junior" season 4 in a Salmon Wellington tag team battle. The three champions emerged as the winner and donate their winnings to their chosen charity.


title: Christine Hà

text: She also revealed that she was the first chef/author to become the winner of Helen Keller Personal Achievement Award in 2014, an award given to people and organizations that "demonstrated outstanding achievement in improving quality of life for people with vision loss". Past/current winners included musicians Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Tom Sullivan, actor Charlie Cox (who portrayed a blind superhero, Matt Murdock/Daredevil, was awarded in June 2015) and businessman Bernard A. Newcomb.


title: Christine Hà

text: She has also opened small-scale pop-up restaurants around the world in the 5 years since winning Master Chef (2012–2017).


title: Christine Hà

text: She has traveled around the world to give TED talks about her life experiences as a blind cook and the lessons she has learned along the way . "Christine has also served as a culinary envoy on behalf of the American Embassy in cultural diplomacy programs in Jordan, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia".


title: Christine Hà

text: In 2018, Hà opened a Vietnamese gastropub in Bravery Chef Hall in Houston, Texas named "The Blind Goat". The name is a combination of her disability and her Vietnamese zodiac sign. The Blind Goat received three stars from the Houston Chronicle and was named a semi-finalist for Best New Restaurant in America by the James Beard Foundation in 2020. In the same Bravery Chef Hall, she and her husband John Suh opened a Korean restaurant called "The Sighted Pig Test Kitchen", which is a combination of her husbands zodiac sign. The menu is centered around authentic Vietnamese dishes, specifically drawing inspiration from Nhau cuisine. Beginning June 2018, Ha began working on her memoir and second cookbook.


title: Christine Hà

text: At the start of 2020, Ha teamed up with Saigon House chef and owner, Tony Nguyen, to open Xin Chao restaurant in Houston. The menu showcases their Vietnamese-American heritage and culinary skills with a contemporary approach to traditional Vietnamese dishes with a touch of Texas BBQ and Gulf Coast seafood.


title: Kahaani

text: Kahaani (; ) is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language thriller film co-written, co-produced and directed by Sujoy Ghosh. It stars Vidya Balan as Vidya Bagchi, a pregnant woman looking for her missing husband in Kolkata during the festival of Durga Puja, assisted by Assist Sub-Inspector Satyoki "Rana" Sinha (Parambrata Chatterjee) and Inspector General A. Khan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui).


title: Kahaani

text: Made on a shoestring budget of , "Kahaani" was conceived and developed by Ghosh, who co-wrote the film with Advaita Kala. The crew often employed guerrilla-filmmaking techniques on Kolkata's city streets to avoid attracting attention. The film was noted for its deft portrayal of the city and for making use of many local crew and cast members. "Kahaani" explores themes of feminism and motherhood in male-dominated Indian society. The film also makes several allusions to Satyajit Ray's films such as "Charulata" (1964), "Aranyer Din Ratri" (1970) and "Joi Baba Felunath" (1979). The film's musical score and soundtrack is composed by Clinton Cerejo and Vishal–Shekhar respectively, with cinematography being handled by Setu and editing done by Namrata Rao.


title: Kahaani

text: "Kahaani" was released worldwide on 9 March 2012. Critics praised the screenplay, the cinematography and the performances of the lead actors. Following critical acclaim and word-of-mouth publicity, the film earned worldwide in 50 days. The film won several awards, including three National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards. The latter included trophies for Best Director (Ghosh) and Best Actress (Vidya). The film was remade by Sekhar Kammula in Telugu as "Anaamika" (2014) with Nayanthara reprising Vidya's role. A spiritual successor, titled "", was released on 2 December 2016.


title: Kahaani

text: A poison-gas attack on a Kolkata Metro Rail compartment kills the passengers on board. Two years later Vidya Bagchi, a pregnant British-Indian software engineer, arrives in Kolkata from London during the Durga Puja festivities in search of her missing husband, Arnab Bagchi. A police officer, Satyaki "Rana" Sinha, offers to help. Although Vidya claims that Arnab went to Kolkata on an assignment for the National Data Center (NDC), initial investigations suggest that no such person was employed by the NDC.


title: Kahaani

text: Agnes D'Mello, the NDC's head of human resources, suggests to Vidya that her husband resembled former employee Milan Damji, whose file is probably kept in the old NDC office. Before Agnes can provide any further help she is killed by Bob Biswas, an assassin working undercover as a life insurance agent. Agnes is shot at the entrance of her house before which she is seen enjoying some music. Vidya and Rana break into the NDC office and find Damji's file, barely escaping an encounter with Bob, who is searching for the same information. Meanwhile, the attempts to obtain Damji's records have attracted the attention of two Intelligence Bureau officials in Delhi—the chief Bhaskaran K. and his deputy Khan. Khan arrives in Kolkata and reveals that Damji was a rogue IB agent responsible for the poison-gas attack. In spite of Khan's warnings, Vidya continues her search, fearing that Arnab's resemblance to Damji may have led him into trouble.


title: Kahaani

text: The address on Damji's record leads Vidya and Rana to a dilapidated flat. An errand boy from the neighbourhood tea stall identifies R. Sridhar, an NDC officer, as a frequent visitor to Damji's flat. Bob attempts, but fails, to kill Vidya, and is soon run over by a truck during a chase. Examination of Bob's mobile phone leads Vidya and Rana to an IP address sending instructions to kill her. They break into Sridhar's office to verify his IP address, but he is alerted electronically and returns to his office. Vidya accidentally kills Sridhar during a scuffle, which upsets Khan, who had wanted him alive.


title: Kahaani

text: Sridhar's computer data reveals a code, which when deciphered reveals Bhaskaran's phone number. Vidya calls Bhaskaran to tell him that she has retrieved sensitive documents from Sridhar's office. She asks Bhaskaran to help find her husband in exchange for the documents, but Bhaskaran tells her to contact the local police. Vidya soon gets a call from an unknown number, warning her that she should hand over the documents to the caller if she wishes to see her husband alive. Khan thinks the caller is Damji.


title: Kahaani

text: Vidya goes to meet Damji, followed by Rana and Khan. Damji cuts the meeting short when Vidya expresses her doubt that he will be able to return her husband in exchange for the sensitive file, and he attempts to leave. Vidya tries to stop him, and in the ensuing struggle Damji draws a gun on her. Vidya disarms him using the prosthetic belly she has been using to fake her pregnancy and promptly stabbing him in the neck with her hair stick before finally killing him with his own gun. She flees into the crowd before the police arrive, leaving a thank you note for Rana and a pen drive containing data from Sridhar's computer, which leads to Bhaskaran's arrest. Rana concludes that neither Vidya nor Arnab Bagchi ever existed, and that Vidya had been using the police and the IB to achieve her own ends.


title: Kahaani

text: Vidya is revealed to be the widow of Major Arup Basu, an IB and Army officer and Damji's colleague, who was killed in the poison-gas attack, which also caused Vidya to immediately fall unconscious upon seeing her husband's corpse and suffer a miscarriage. In her mission to avenge his and their unborn child's death, Vidya was helped by the retired IB officer Col Pratap Bajpayee, who suspected the involvement of a top IB official.


title: Kahaani

text: Sujoy Ghosh approached novelist and script writer Advaita Kala with the idea for the film. Kala took inspiration from her experience in Kolkata, where she had moved in 1999, akin to the protagonist in the film. She reported that despite facing a language barrier and the chaos and poverty of the metropolis, she was charmed by the warmth of the people, which was reflected in the film. Kala started writing in 2009 and finished the 185-page script by February 2010. Her research included reading the books "" by Maloy Krishna Dhar and "India's External Intelligence: Secrets of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)" by V. K. Singh.


title: Kahaani

text: Ghosh, who co-wrote the story and the screenplay, began to plan the film while awaiting the release of his previous film "Aladin" (2009), but the dismal response to "Aladin" was a setback. He had to approach several producers to finance him for "Kahaani", but was refused and discouraged from making the film owing to three factors: a pregnant woman as the lead star, a bunch of unknown Bengali actors as the supporting cast and Kolkata as a backdrop. Yashraj Films were willing to produce the film, but wanted Ghosh to sign a three-film deal, which he declined because he did not want that much commitment.


title: Kahaani

text: Bengali film actor Prosenjit Chatterjee encouraged Ghosh to shoot in Kolkata. Ghosh finally selected Kolkata for several reasons: the director's acquaintance with the city, its mix of modernity and old-world charm, and budget constraints. Kolkata is a cheaper location than Mumbai or Delhi, where most Bollywood films are shot.


title: Kahaani

text: Ghosh admitted in an interview that after his two preceding directorial ventures—"Aladin" and "Home Delivery" (2005)—performed poorly at the box office, "Kahaani" was his last chance to create a niche as a director. He added that the film's plot twist came somewhat accidentally. Having described the skeleton of the story to a friend during its development, the friend called him back a few days later to enquire about his film. The friend had mistakenly imagined sequences which he assumed to be parts of the plot, from which the twist ending was derived.


title: Kahaani

text: According to Jyothika, she was initially offered the role of Vidya Bagchi, but declined; the role eventually went to Vidya Balan. Ghosh had planned for a long time to work with Vidya and approached her in 2010. Unimpressed with the plot outline, Vidya refused, only changing her mind after having read the completed script.


title: Kahaani

text: Ghosh chose mostly Bengali actors as he wanted to make the characters as authentic as possible. The role of the Inspector Satyoki "Rana" Sinha was first offered to Chandan Roy Sanyal, but he could not take the part due to other commitments. Parambrata Chatterjee, a Bengali actor whose acting in the film "The Bong Connection" (2006) had impressed Ghosh at the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image festival, was later offered the role in "Kahaani". Chatterjee had earlier worked with Vidya in her début film "Bhalo Theko" (2003).


title: Kahaani

text: The casting director Roshmi Banerjee suggested Nawazuddin Siddiqui for the role of Khan. Siddiqui, who had only had minor roles in Bollywood up to that time, was surprised that for the first time he would not have to portray a beggar. Saswata Chatterjee, another Bengali actor, was surprised as well when he was offered the role of the contract killer Bob Biswas. He thought there were suitable actors in Hindi film industry for the role. He said that Ghosh had known him since childhood and was impressed with his acting, so he wanted him as Bob Biswas.


title: Kahaani

text: Ghosh went against the expectations of casting a popular actor from Bollywood. He signed Bengali actor Abir Chatterjee to play Vidya's husband. According to Ghosh, popular Bollywood actors were not willing to work with him after his two previous flops. He also believed that audience might expect more screen-time from a better-known actor. Several other Bengali film and television actors, such as Indraneil Sengupta and Kharaj Mukherjee, were cast in supporting roles.


title: Kahaani

text: Before the shooting of the film began, Vidya started to use a prosthetic belly to look as close to authentically pregnant as possible. According to news reports, she met doctors and pregnant women to learn about the typical lifestyle and nuances of a pregnant woman, and also made lists of rules and superstitions followed by pregnant women. Vidya said that during her college days she often used to imitate pregnant ladies during stand-up acting among friends, an experience that helped her during the shooting.


title: Kahaani

text: While briefing Saswata Chatterjee about his character, the cold-blooded killer Bob Biswas, Ghosh used the phrase ""Binito Bob"" (meaning polite Bob), which crystallised the notion of Bob's manners. Further discussions led to the inclusion of paunch and a bald patch. Chatterjee devised the mannerism of rubbing his nails together as some Indians believe doing that helps prevent hair loss. The mannerism was well-noted and praised by the viewers. Ghosh was surprised at how Bob Biswas was greeted by fans as a cult figure. He emphasised that the deliberate ordinariness of Bob Biswas was portrayed so convincingly by Chatterjee that the viewers can expect Bob to be around them at any time and any place.


title: Kahaani

text: Parambrata Chatterjee said in an interview that he did not identify with the Rana character, owing to the difference between his own urban upbringing and Rana's rural background. Chatterjee visited police stations and did some research "on their work, mindset and other relevant things" to prepare for the role. The character Khan was envisaged as a ruthless, arrogant, expletive-spewing officer who cares nothing about the emotional or social consequences of his behaviour. Siddiqui said that he was surprised on being offered the role, and wondered how he could portray the arrogance needed for the character. Ghosh built Khan as a character with lean physical build but full of mental strength, loyalty and patriotism. Khan smokes a relatively cheap brand of cigarette (Gold Flake) despite his high official post; Siddiqui had smoked that brand of cigarette throughout his struggling days in Bollywood and thereafter.


title: Kahaani

text: Filming took place on the streets of Kolkata, where Ghosh often employed the art of guerrilla filmmaking (shooting in real locations without any previous knowledge given to onlookers) to avoid unwanted attention. The cinematographer Setu, who had assisted others in the past to shoot documentaries in Kolkata, said that unlike majority of Indian films, "Kahaani" was shot mostly without artificial light. The film was shot in 64 days, during which the Durga Puja festival of 2010 took place. Shooting locations in Kolkata included Kalighat Metro station, Nonapukur tram depot, Kumartuli, Howrah Bridge, Victoria Memorial, old houses of North Kolkata and others. The climax, which takes place on the night of Vijayadashami (the last day of Durga Puja), was shot on the night of Vijayadashami in the premises of a "Barowari" (publicly organised) Durga Puja celebration in the Ballygunge neighbourhood of Kolkata. Most of the crowd in the climax were not actors. Some actors mingled with the crowd engaged in "Sindoor khela"—their job was to appreciate the camera angles and accordingly apply "sindoor" (vermilion) on Vidya's face so that accidental exposure of her eyes to "sindoor" could be avoided.


title: Kahaani

text: Ghosh chose the guest house in which the protagonist stays after noticing it during his visit to a neighbouring hotel in April 2010. He booked it for 10 days for , and requested the guest-house employees to keep the shooting schedule a secret. Choosing a room with windows overlooking a busy road, he proceeded to give it an old-fashioned look by replacing the windows' designer grilles with old-fashioned wooden ones, and by painting the room with some rough patches.


title: Kahaani

text: After "Ishqiya" (2010), "No One Killed Jessica" (2011) and "The Dirty Picture" (2011), "Kahaani" was Vidya's fourth woman-centric film to win widespread praise for her unconventional approach to portraying strong female roles. According to Zee News, "Kahaani" is a woman's film about "role reversals, breaking of stereotypes, turning clichés inside out, a woman's journey, and the way she carves a niche for herself in the male-dominated mentalscape of the society." Trisha Gupta of "The Indian Express" also finds feminist themes in the film. For Ghosh, one aspect of his project "is a study of motherhood"; the instinct of a mother to protect her baby inspired him to develop the story.


title: Kahaani

text: A recurring theme is the fleeting hint of romance between Rana and Vidya. Ghosh said that this delicate romance was "the most progressive thing" in the film—a suggestion that a man could fall in love with a pregnant woman. The director explained that the boy was initially "fascinated by someone who is literally a hero in his eyes", as Rana was awed by the computer skills of Vidya. Gradually, the fascinated boy moves into a zone where he tries to protect her.


title: Kahaani

text: Some reviewers note that a major protagonist is Kolkata itself, which is "brimming with warm, sympathetic inhabitants". A review in Rediff.com notes that the director pays a "fond yet understated tribute" to the city by incorporating imagery such as "yellow taxis, leisurely trams, congested traffic, claustrophobic metros, dilapidated brick houses, tapering alleys, rajnigandhas, lal paad saris, piping hot luchis". According to the reviewer, "Kahaani" did not depend on the tropes of Kolkata culture typically used in Bollywood film—"O-emphasizing accent, dramatic play of conch shells, rasgulla/mishti doi excesses." The director acknowledges that Kolkata "becomes a central character" of the film. Gautaman Bhaskaran, writing for "Gulf Times", notes that Kolkata imagery was polished up in the film; noted Bengali director Srijit Mukherji argues that the portrayal of the city in "Kahaani" was akin to a "Lonely Planet exotica" on the city. Uddalak Mukherjee of "The Telegraph" explains that Kolkata in "Kahaani" was cosmetic and lacked a deep menacing presence. Mukherjee argues the depiction of the city never matches the level of Satyajit Ray's Calcutta trilogy, where "aided by bloodshed, greed and decadence, ...Calcutta ..., even though a place of dreams, desires and hope, slides irreversibly into chaos, anxiety and a moral crisis, taking its residents with it".


title: Kahaani

text: Durga Puja, the autumnal festival to worship goddess Durga, plays a prominent role in the story. The allegorical yearly return of goddess Durga to slay the demon Mahishasura is alluded to at the end of the film. According to Uddalak Mukherjee of "The Telegraph", "Durga Puja, with its paraphernalia of idols, immersion processions, "pandals", even an entire crowd of women draped in white "saris" with red borders, is central to the film's ... visual aesthetic." A review in Rediff.com praised the depiction of the festivities in Kolkata, a city well known for its celebration of Durga Puja.


title: Kahaani

text: Ghosh acknowledges the allusions to Ray's films. In one scene, Vidya asks the manager of the guest house why there is no hot water although the signboard had claimed "running hot water". The manager explains that the sign refers for his errand boy, who runs to deliver hot water in a kettle whenever required. This alludes to a similar scene in Ray's "Joi Baba Felunath" (1979). In an interview with "The Telegraph", Ghosh says that the way Vidya looks out and moves from window to window in the guest-house room is reminiscent of Ray's "Charulata" (1964), where the actress Madhabi Mukherjee enjoys glimpses of the outside world through the blinds of windows. He also acknowledges the influence of "Mahanagar" (1963), another Ray film noted for its portrayal of Kolkata. According to the director, he was inspired by particular scenes of Ray's "Nayak" (1966) to plan the portrayal of complex emotional issues between Vidya and the police officer Rana, especially Rana's awe in the presence of Vidya. Ghosh expresses his inspiration from Ray's "Aranyer Dinratri" (1970) in which Ray "wanted the audience to be inside the car with the four guys all the time. So the camera never leaves the car." Ghosh shot a similar scene, hoping the audience would become "like Vidya's fellow passenger."


title: Kahaani

text: Besides Ray's films, Ghosh also admits inspiration from what he calls "visually striking" films of the 1970s and 1980s, such as "Deewaar" (1975). Critics have compared the fake-pregnancy twist of "Kahaani" with the 2004 American psychological thriller "Taking Lives". The sequences towards the end that explain the missing pieces of the mystery were compared with "The Usual Suspects" (1995). Ghosh writes that the film was heavily influenced by the colour scheme of the "Pratima Visarjan", a c.1915 watercolour by the Bengal School artist Gaganendranath Tagore.


title: Kahaani

text: The film score is composed by Clinton Cerejo, whereas the soundtrack album is composed by Vishal–Shekhar, and the lyrics for the film's six songs were written by Vishal Dadlani, Anvita Dutt and Sandeep Srivastava. Several of R. D. Burman's Hindi and Bengali compositions were used in the background. The album was released on 13 February 2012, subsequently on the digital music platform Apple iTunes India since its inception from mid-2012.


title: Kahaani

text: The soundtrack received positive reviews, and was praised for its amalgamation of Bengali and Hindi lyrics. A review in CNN-IBN states that the song "Ami Shotti Bolchi" is able to partially convey the feel of Kolkata, and that the soundtrack "features right voices with the overall mood of the album". "Mumbai Mirror" rated the album with 3 stars out of 5. Reviewing the soundtrack for "The Times of India", Anand Vaishnav commented that ""Kahaani", as an album, stays honest to the theme of the film".


title: Kahaani

text: "Kahaani"s first-look poster was launched on 2 December 2011, and the official trailer on 5 January 2012. The poster, portraying a pregnant Vidya Balan and lacking any romantic element, was well received. Critics' expectations were low, owing to the director's previous box-office failures. Vidya appeared in public with a prosthetic belly to promote the film, and mingled with the public in railway stations, bus stands and markets. She often carried a sketch of her on-screen missing husband, and asked people to help in finding him. Social-networking website Ibibo.com developed an online game, "The Great Indian Parking Wars", which required players to park Vidya's taxi on a street; it was well-received, reaching 50,000 hits in 10 days.


title: Kahaani

text: On 5 March 2012, prior to release, Kolkata Metro authorities objected to a scene in which Vidya is pushed by a man onto the tracks as a train arrives. They requested that the scene be removed, as it would remind people of the past suicides, which had tarnished the railway's image. The filmmakers screened the scene for the authorities and explained that nothing in the film would affect the image of the Metro or prompt people to commit suicide. Convinced, the officials withdrew their objections, and the scene was retained, although it was removed from trailers.


title: Kahaani

text: "Kahaani" was released on 9 March 2012, a day after International Women's Day. It played on 1100 screens worldwide. CNN-IBN reported that although "Kahaani" was ready before "The Dirty Picture", distributors deferred its release, fearing that Vidya's role of a sexy siren (in "The Dirty Picture") after that of a pregnant woman might not be received well. STAR TV bought the exclusive right to broadcast the film for a price of , which was the highest-ever price paid for a female-centric film in India. The Indian television premiere of the film was on Star India's channel Movies OK on 3 June 2012. The DVD of the film was released on 17 May 2012 across all regions in a one-disc pack in NTSC format. Distributed by Shemaroo Entertainment, it contained additional content, such as behind-the-scene footage, video of celebration parties after its theatrical release, and music videos of the songs of the film. The VCD and Blu-ray versions were released at the same time. The film is also available on Netflix.


title: Kahaani

text: "Kahaani" received critical acclaim. According to review aggregator "Review Gang" the film received a rating of 7.5 out of 10, based on the reviews by professional critics. Good word of mouth publicity played a part in its popularity besides the positive reviews. "The Telegraph" called the film "a mind-juggling medley of manipulation masquerading as a 'mother of a story'". Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, and praised Vidya's acting. "The Times of India" commented "Once again, a 'pregnant' Vidya, ironically displays more 'male ornaments' ... than most heroes." The reviews in Rediff, Indo Asian News Service, CNN-IBN, Zee News, "Hindustan Times", and "The Hindu" were unanimously positive, and noted script, direction, cinematography, and acting as strong points of the film. Noted film actress and multiple National Award winner Shabana Azmi lauded Vidya for her performance,"As an actor, I could see she [Vidya] was making all the right moves throughout the film. There was not a single artificial note in her performance." Russell Edwards, the reviewer for "Variety", praised the cast, cinematography, and direction, and commented that despite occasional glitches, the "adroit thriller ... maintains momentum and credibility."


title: Kahaani

text: Many reviewers criticised the film's climax and certain features, feeling that they deviated from its general style. Rituparna Chatterjee of CNN-IBN noted that the climax of the film was a "huge dampener" and explained, "The diabolic twist at that juncture got underplayed ... What follows is a sobfest ... the apologetic explanation of why she does what she does. Justifying her action comes across more as an effort to appease the Indian morality". The "Outlook" review noted, "At times, "Kahaani" is too clever, at others extremely pedestrian like in the depiction of computer hacking and IB operations, not to speak of the ludicrous terrorist angle and the all-too predictable Durga Puja setting for that mythology tie-in." It adds that the "spoon-feeding" of reasons at the end dampens the intrigue factor. The review in Yahoo! India comments that the Durga metaphor at the end was enforced, and that the film over-indulged in Bengali stereotypes. Gautaman Bhaskaran, in his review in "Gulf Times", noted that the sometimes-handheld photography was "as irksome as the plot with a sleuth too many and cops galore."


title: Kahaani

text: Though "Kahaani" received critical acclaim, it was a slow starter at the box office, opening to a poor response on the first day, but gradually picking afterwards. According to "The Telegraph", the film earned almost from the state of West Bengal within the first three days of its release. At multiplexes in Kolkata, occupancy increased from 47% on Friday 9 March, the day of release, to 77% on 10 March and to around 97% on 11 March. Box Office India, a website on Indian film trade, reported that the film collected nearly in its first week, well beyond its production cost of . It grossed in second week to make a two-week total of around in India; this led Box Office India to declare the film a "Super Hit". The film was successful in the international box office as well, garnering within 10 days of its release in seven markets—UK, US, UAE, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Pakistan, according to Bollywood Hungama, a film-related website. By the third week, according to CNN-IBN, it had grossed , including India and overseas market. "Hindustan Times" reported that "Kahaani" made a worldwide gross of within 50 days of its release.


title: Kahaani

text: "Kahaani" was nominated for, and won, many awards. The 58th Filmfare Awards nominated the film for six of their categories, where it won five, including Best Actress for Vidya and Best Director for Ghosh. "Kahaani" received thirteen nominations at the 19th Colors Screen Awards, and won five, including Best Actress and Best Story. At the 14th Zee Cine Awards, "Kahaani" won five awards, including Best Film (Critics) and Best Actress (Critics), out of fifteen nominations. At the 2013 Stardust Awards ceremony, "Kahaani" was announced Hottest Film of the Year while Vidya received for the Best Actress in a Thriller or Action. "Kahaani" was awarded the Most Entertaining Film of the Year at the 3rd ceremony of the BIG Star Entertainment Awards. At the 60th National Film Awards, Ghosh won Best Screenplay (Original), Namrata Rao won Best Editing, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui won a Special Jury award.


title: Kahaani

text: Two remakes of "Kahaani" were released in 2014: a Telugu remake titled "Anaamika", and its Tamil version "Nee Enge En Anbe", both directed by Sekhar Kammula and featuring Nayantara as the lead character. An English-language remake, entitled "Deity", will be directed by the Danish director Niels Arden Oplev and produced by Yashraj Films, with production scheduled to begin in 2015.


title: Kahaani

text: Following "Kahaani"s success, Kolkata became a preferred destination for Bollywood filmmakers. They felt the landscapes of Mumbai and Delhi were overused for several decades, while Kolkata retained its unique visuals such as metro trains, rickety trams, hand-pulled rickshaws, dingy bylanes, palatial mansions, dilapidated houses of North Kolkata, roadside eateries, ghats of river Ganga, British-era buildings, restaurants and iconic structures and areas including Howrah Bridge, Kalighat Temple, Nakhoda Mosque, Kumortuli idol-making district and Victoria Memorial.


title: Kahaani

text: Monalisa Guest House, the lodge which hosted Vidya Bagchi in the film, became a local attraction. Several hundreds have visited it since the film's release, to the extent that the owners planned to increase tariffs and renovate the rooms around a "Kahaani" theme.


title: Kahaani

text: The potbellied contract killer Bob Biswas became an Internet phenomenon, the subject of several jokes and pieces of pop art, which circulated through Facebook and Twitter. "Nomoshkar, Aami Bob Biswas... Ek minute?" ("Hello, I am Bob Biswas... do you have a minute?")—the monologue he repeatedly uses just before murdering his victims—was used in different memes. A graphic novel and a television show based on Bob Biswas were being planned, ,


title: Kahaani

text: In March 2012, Sujoy Ghosh announced that he intended to develop "Kahaani" into a series. He was inspired by Satyajit Ray's "Feluda" detective series and wanted to continue the stories of Vidya Bagchi on similar lines, with Vidya Balan reprising the role. The shooting of "Kahaani 2" was scheduled to begin in 2013, but in July 2013 differences arose between Sujoy Ghosh and other co-producers. In February 2014, Vidya announced that the sequel was not happening due to these differences, but two years later, Ghosh confirmed that the film was in pre-production with Vidya set to reprise her role. The sequel, entitled "Kahaani 2", began filming in March 2016 with Vidya and Arjun Rampal in lead roles, and was released on 2 December 2016. The producers indicated plans to release a second sequel.


title: Kahaani

text: "Bob Biswas", a spin-off to "Kahaani", is a 2021 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller film produced by Red Chillies Entertainment. The film, starring Abhishek Bachchan as Bob Biswas and Chitrangada Singh as his wife, premiered on 3 December 2021 on ZEE5. This film is the directorial debut of Diya Annapurna Ghosh, daughter of Sujoy Ghosh who directed "Kahaani".


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: Tank Girl is a 1995 American science fiction film directed by Rachel Talalay. Based on the British post-apocalyptic comic series of the same name created by Jamie Hewlett and written by Alan Martin that was originally published in "Deadline" magazine, the film stars Lori Petty, Naomi Watts, Ice-T and Malcolm McDowell. "Tank Girl" is set in a drought-ravaged Australia, years after a catastrophic impact event. It follows the antihero Tank Girl (Petty) as she, Jet Girl (Watts), and genetically modified supersoldiers called the Rippers fight "Water & Power", an oppressive corporation led by Kesslee (McDowell).


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: After reading an issue of the "Tank Girl" comic she had received as a gift, Talalay obtained permission from "Deadline"s publisher Tom Astor to direct a film adaptation. She selected Catherine Hardwicke to be the production designer, and worked closely with Martin and Hewlett during the making of the film. "Tank Girl" was filmed primarily in White Sands, New Mexico, and Tucson, Arizona. The film's critically praised soundtrack was assembled by Courtney Love, and the Rippers' makeup and prosthetics team was headed by Stan Winston. Winston's studio wanted to work on the project so much that they cut their usual prices in half to meet the film's budget.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: Financially unsuccessful, "Tank Girl" recouped only about $6 million of its $25 million budget at the box office and received mixed reviews from critics. Martin and Hewlett have since spoken negatively of their experiences creating the film. Talalay blamed some of the film's negative reception on studio edits over which she had no control. Despite the box-office failure of the film, it has been cited as an example of a comic-book film with a cult following, and it is noted for its feminist themes.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: In the year 2033, after a decade-long global drought in the wake of a comet striking the Earth, the little remaining water is controlled by Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell) and his Water & Power (W&P) corporation, which subdues the population by monopolising the water supply. Rebecca Buck – "Tank Girl" (Lori Petty) – is a member of a commune in the Australian outback that operates the last water well not controlled by the corporation. In an attack on the commune, W&P troops kill Tank Girl's boyfriend, Richard (Brian Wimmer), and capture Tank Girl and her young friend Sam (Stacy Linn Ramsower). Rather than killing her, Kesslee enslaves and tortures the defiant Tank Girl. Jet Girl (Naomi Watts), a talented but introverted jet mechanic who has given up trying to escape W&P, urges Tank Girl to make less trouble for their captors, though Tank Girl refuses. Among other forms of torture, W&P personnel push her down into a long pipe to induce claustrophobia.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: The mysterious Rippers slaughter guards at the W&P compound, then escape. Kesslee uses Tank Girl to lure the Rippers into the open, but they gravely wound him. Tank Girl and Jet Girl escape during the attack. Jet Girl steals a fighter jet from W&P and Tank Girl steals a tank, which she modifies heavily. The girls learn from the eccentric Sub Girl (Ann Cusack) that Sam is working at a sex club called Liquid Silver. They infiltrate the club, rescue Sam from a pedophile, Rat Face (Iggy Pop), and then humiliate the club's owner, "The Madame" (Ann Magnuson), by making her sing Cole Porter's "Let's Do It" at gunpoint. W&P troops break up the performance and recapture Sam. Tank Girl and Jet Girl wander the desert and find the Rippers' hideout. They learn that the Rippers are supersoldiers created from human and kangaroo DNA by a man called Johnny Prophet. Tank Girl befriends a Ripper named Booga (Jeff Kober), while a Ripper named Donner (Scott Coffey) shows romantic interest in Jet Girl. Despite the objections of the Ripper T-Saint (Ice-T), who is suspicious of the girls, the Rippers' leader Deetee (Reg E. Cathey) sends the pair out to capture a shipment of weapons. The girls bring the weapons crates back, though most of them are empty. After finding Johnny Prophet dead in one of the containers, the girls and the Rippers realize that W&P has tricked them.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: The girls and the Rippers sneak into W&P, where they are ambushed. Kesslee, whose body had been reconstructed by the cybernetic surgeon Che'tsai (James Hong), reveals that Tank Girl has unknowingly been bugged. Deetee sacrifices himself damaging the generator, and in the darkness the Rippers turn the tide of the battle. Jet Girl kills Sergeant Small (Don Harvey), who had earlier sexually harassed her. Kesslee reveals that Sam is in the pipe, her life endangered by rising water. Tank Girl kills Kesslee, then pulls Sam out of the pipe. The film ends with an animated sequence showing water starting to flow freely. Tank Girl drives down rapids, pulling Booga behind on water skis, then takes them over a waterfall, shouting for joy.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: Writing in the 1997 book "Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and Its Audience", Deborah Cartmell states that while the comic showed Tank Girl to be "unheroic or even [an] accidental antihero", the film sets her up with "classic western generic" emotional and moral justifications for her liberation and revenge on W&P, as she witnesses the slaughter of her boyfriend and her "trusty steed". She also sees one of the commune's children being abducted, and is herself captured and enslaved. Cartmell also says Tank Girl holds parallels with other "contemporary 'postfeminist' icons", as she displays dominant female sexuality and a "familiarity and knowing coolness of 'outlawed' modes of sexuality", such as masturbation, sadomasochism and lesbianism.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: In her 2006 book "The Modern Amazons: Warrior Women On-Screen", Dominique Mainon writes that the film has antiestablishment themes and, unlike many comic-book adaptation films which feature "gratuitous sexual objectification" of women, "Tank Girl" stands out as being "stridently feminist", with the exception of the "cliché victim/avenger complex". According to Mainon, the film makes fun of female stereotypes, as shown by Tank Girl's repeated emasculation of Kesslee with witty comebacks while she is being tortured, and by her response to the computer training device telling her how to present herself to men at the Liquid Silver club. The device provides seductive clothing and tells Tank Girl to remove her body hair and to wear make-up and a wig. Tank Girl completely ignores the advice and modifies the clothes to create her own style.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: In the 2011 book "Cult Cinema", Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton discuss the issue of whether cult films purported to be feminist were truly feminist or "partly the effect of the performance of feminist attitudes in its reception". The authors consider "Tank Girl" to be a "'real' feminist cult film", as opposed to the feminist cult films of Kathryn Bigelow and Catherine Hardwicke, which they consider to be too masculine and too eager to cater to "hetero-normativity", respectively.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: In 1988, about a year after the launch of the "Tank Girl" comic in the British magazine "Deadline", its publisher, Tom Astor, began looking for a studio interested in making a film adaptation. While several studios, including New Line Cinema, expressed interest, progress was slow. Rachel Talalay's stepdaughter gave her a "Tank Girl" comic to read while she was shooting her directorial debut film, "" (released in 1991). Talalay read the comic between takes and became interested in directing a "Tank Girl" film. She contacted Astor and, after hearing nothing for almost a year, was about to give up trying to secure the rights when he gave her permission to make the film. Talalay pitched the film to Amblin Entertainment and Columbia Pictures, which both turned it down. Talalay turned down an offer from Disney, as she did not believe the studio would allow the levels of violence and the sexual references the plot required. An offer from MGM was accepted. Talalay worked closely with the "Tank Girl" comic's co-creators Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett during the film's production, and selected Catherine Hardwicke to be the production designer. The studio was unhappy with Hardwicke, who was relatively unknown at the time, being chosen over more experienced designers, and Talalay had to meet with the producers to persuade them to allow Hardwicke to work on the project. Tedi Sarafian wrote the screenplay and Gale Tattersall was chosen as cinematographer. Believing that MGM would not allow the depiction of a bestial relationship in the film, the romance between Tank Girl and Booga was only written into the second or third version of the script, after the character was already established in the minds of people involved in the production. By this stage, Booga: "was a character and not just a kangaroo [so] it wasn't an issue anymore."


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: MGM held open casting sessions in London, Los Angeles, and New York for the role of Tank Girl. According to Talalay, "two or three" of the Spice Girls met while waiting in line for the auditions; Victoria Beckham and Geri Halliwell can be seen standing next to each-other in footage from the event. There was skepticism towards the audition even at the time, and Talalay later confirmed it was a publicity stunt arranged by MGM; Talalay had already been asking the studio to cast a well-known English actress, Emily Lloyd. Talalay says she fired Lloyd after she refused to cut her hair for the role. Lloyd, who had spent four months training for the role, disputes this, saying production had been going well until Talalay found out she was staying at the same hotel as Sarafian. Lloyd says it was a coincidence and she barely spoke to Sarafian, and could only speculate as to why Talalay subsequently became "frosty with both of [them]" and then fired her, ostensibly for rescheduling her appointment with the film's hair stylist. Talalay cast Lori Petty, an American, because "she is crazy in her own life and [the film] needed somebody like that." MGM faxed "Deadline" asking them for an "ideal cast" list; they selected Malcolm McDowell for Kesslee, but never believed MGM would actually contact him. McDowell has spoken favorably of his experience working on the film, saying it had the "same flavour" as "A Clockwork Orange", and praised Talalay and Petty. Talalay was approached by several people who wanted cameos in the film, but she did not want the film to be overshadowed by such appearances. Two cameos were settled on – Iggy Pop was given the role of Rat Face, and Björk was offered Sub Girl. She later dropped out, her character's scenes were rewritten, and the role was then given to Ann Cusack.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: "Tank Girl" was filmed over 16 weeks, in three locations; desert scenes were filmed in White Sands, New Mexico, the Liquid Silver club set was built at an abandoned shopping mall in Phoenix, Arizona, and all remaining scenes were filmed within 40 miles of Tucson, Arizona. Many scenes were filmed in an abandoned open-pit mine, where filming had to be halted one day due to a chemical leak. Permission was received to film the water pipe scenes at the Titan Missile Museum, near the mine, but the day before shooting, permission was withdrawn. These scenes were filmed, instead, in a tunnel at the abandoned mine. New sets were often found by simply searching the mine. Principal photography was completed on September27, 1994, two days over schedule, though still within the original budget.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: In the comics, the Rippers are considerably more kangaroo-like. However, Talalay wanted real actors rather than stuntmen in suits playing the roles. She asked Hewlett to redesign the Rippers to make them more human, allowing them to have the actual actors' facial expressions. Requests were sent out to "all the major make-up and effects people", including Stan Winston, whose prior work included the "Terminator" films, "Aliens" and "Jurassic Park". Talalay said that while she considered Winston to be the best, she did not expect to hear back from him. When she did, she still did not think that she would be able to afford his studio on her budget. A meeting was arranged and Winston insisted on being given the project, saying the Rippers would be: "the best characters we've had the opportunity to do." Winston's studio cut their usual prices in half to meet the film's budget. Eight Rippers were featured in the film: half were given principal roles, the others were mainly in the background. Each Ripper had articulated ears and tails which were activated by remote control, and the background Rippers also had mechanical snouts which could be activated either by remote control or by the movement of the actors' mouths. Each Ripper's make-up took about four hours to apply. Three technicians from Winston's studio were required to work on each Ripper's articulations during filming; no puppets or digital effects were used for the Rippers.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: The tank used in the film is a modified M5A1 Stuart. It was purchased from the government of Peru about 12 years prior to filming and had already been used in several films. Among numerous modifications made for "Tank Girl", the tank's 37 mm antitank gun was covered with a modified flag pole to give the appearance of a 105 mm gun. An entire 1969 Cadillac Eldorado was added onto the tank, with the rear section welded at the back and the fender welded to the front.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: A "naked Ripper suit" incorporating a prosthetic penis was created for Booga and used in a filmed postcoital scene which was removed from the final version of the film at the studio's insistence. Deborah Cartmell described the "postcoital scene" in the final version, which featured Booga fully clothed, as "carefully edited". Against Talalay's wishes, the studio made several other edits to the film. The scene in which Kesslee tortures Tank Girl was cut heavily on the grounds that she appeared "too ugly" while being tortured. Also cut was a scene showing Tank Girl's bedroom, which was shown to be decorated with dozens of dildos, and a scene in which she places a condom on a banana before throwing it at a soldier. The role of Sub Girl was originally intended to be larger; at least two scenes featuring the character were cut from the film, including her appearance in the original ending. The studio cut the original ending, a live-action scene in which it begins to rain; the film was to have ended with Tank Girl burping.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: The film's soundtrack was assembled by Courtney Love; Graeme Revell composed the original music. Love's band Hole contributed the song "Drown Soda". Greg Graffin from Bad Religion was originally supposed to sing the duet of "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" with Joan Jett, but due to contractual restrictions he was replaced by Paul Westerberg from the Replacements. Devo recorded a new version of their song "Girl U Want" specifically for the film, as they were big fans of the comic. "Girl U Want" plays in the film's opening sequence, featuring the singing of Jula Bell from Bulimia Banquet; this version with Bell is in the film but not on the soundtrack album. The soundtrack featured Björk's song "Army of Me" before it was released as a single. Because of the box-office failure of the film, both Björk and her label decided not to use footage from the film in the song's accompanying music video.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: The song "Mockingbird Girl" by the Magnificent Bastards (a side project of Scott Weiland) was recorded specifically for the album after Love approached Weiland asking if he would like to contribute a song. The single's cover showed the torso and thighs of an animated character resembling Tank Girl and featured the tracks "Ripper Sole" and "Girl U Want" from the album. In the United States, it peaked at No.27 on the Mainstream Rock chart and No.12 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song "2¢" by Beowülf also appears in the film; Talalay lobbied Restless Records to have the song included on the soundtrack but was unsuccessful. Instead, she directed the music video for the song, which featured both animated and live-action footage from the film.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: The soundtrack album was released on March28, 1995, by Warner Bros. Records and Elektra Records. It peaked at number72 on the "Billboard" 200. The next week, "New York" magazine wrote that the soundtrack was getting more attention than the film itself. However, Ron Hancock of Tower Records stated that sales of the album were disappointing and attributed this to the financial failure of the film. Owen Gleiberman spoke favorably of the soundtrack, as did Laura Barcella writing in the book "The End", describing it as a "who's who of '90s female rock." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of "Allmusic" said the album was "much better than the film", awarding it three out of five stars.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: "Tank Girl" premiered at the Mann Chinese Theatre on March30, 1995. Approximately 1,500 people attended the screening, including Talalay, Petty, , McDowell, Watts, and several other actors from the film, as well as Rebecca De Mornay, Lauren Tom, Brendan Fraser and Jason Simmons. Men in W&P costumes handed out bottles of mineral water, and girls dressed in Liquid Silver outfits gave out Astro Pops, candy cigarettes, and "Tank Girl" candy necklaces. About 400 people attended the official after-party at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The film opened in cinemas across the United States the following day.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: "Tank Girl" opened in 1,341 theatres in the United States bringing in $2,018,183 in its first weekend and $2,684,430 at the end of its first week of release. By the end of its second week, "Tank Girl" had made only $3,668,762. Its final gross in the United States was $4,064,495. Internationally, the film added approximately $2,000,000 to that total, against a production budget of $25 million.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: The film holds an approval ratings of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 43 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads: "While unconventional, "Tank Girl" isn't particularly clever or engaging, and none of the script's copious one-liners have any real zing." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: Lamar Hafildason of the BBC gave the film one out of five stars, saying: "Sadly, the BBC does not pay out for one-word reviews. If it did, then this review would read simply: 'tiresome'." In 2001, Matt Brunson from Creative Loafing gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying its soundtrack and the glimpse of Naomi Watt's early career were its only redeeming qualities. Jonathan Rosenbaum gave a moderately positive reviews, concluding: "unless you're a preteen boy who hates girls, it's funnier and a lot more fun than "Batman Forever"."


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars. While praising the film's ambition, he concluded it was hard to care about it for long as its "manic energy" wore him down. Janet Maslin made similar comments about the impact of the film's over-the-top style. Her mixed review also criticised the film's "pointless" plot, though praised the performances of both McDowell and Petty. Owen Gleiberman said Petty's performance was the only good part of the otherwise "amateurish" film, giving it an overall C− rating. Leonard Klady from "Variety" was more critical of Petty, saying she "has the spunk but, sadly, not the heart of the post-apocalyptic heroine", also stating the film lacked an engaging story to draw its intriguing elements together.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: Retrospective reviews of "Tank Girl" have tended to be more positive. In 2015, Elizabeth Sankey said that while plot and continuity issues left the film "tremendously flawed", she still could not help loving it, praising its soundtrack and costuming. Petty's performance was particularly revered, as was the character of Tank Girl. In 2020, Megan Carpentier from NBC News gave a positive review, saying it was too ahead of its time and attributing its initial poor reception to its feminist themes both unsettling the all male producers and executives enough to make heavy cuts to the film, and also not appealing to the mostly male film critics at the time. That same year, Jef Rouner from the "San Francisco Chronicle" called "Tank Girl" the most underappreciated comic book film, praising its style and the performance and chemistry between Petty and McDowell, and Cheryl Eddy from Gizmodo described it as a "fun-as-hell" film that had "long since made up for its tepid box-office take by becoming a cult sensation."


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: "Tank Girl" was released on DVD by MGM on April10, 2001. Aaron Beierle from DVD Talk gave the DVD three and a half stars out of five for both video and audio quality, though only half a star for special features, noting that only the original trailer was included.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: Shout! Factory acquired the rights to several MGM films, including "Tank Girl", and subsequently released a US Blu-ray version on November19, 2013. Special features included the original trailer, a 'Making of' featurette, a commentary track with Petty and Talalay, and interviews with Talalay, Petty, and Hardwicke. Jeffrey Kauffman from Blu-ray.com gave the version four stars out of five for audio and video quality and three stars for special features. M. Enois Duarte from highdefdigest.com gave the version three and a half stars out of five for video quality, four stars for audio quality, and two and a half stars for extras. The Blu-ray has not been released internationally.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: To boost its declining readership, "Deadline" featured Tank Girl on its cover many times in 1994 and 1995 in anticipation of the film's release. Subsequently, Tom Astor said the release of the film: "was very helpful, but it did not make up the difference, it lost some of its cult appeal without gaining any mainstream credibility." The magazine ceased publication in late 1995. Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett have since spoken negatively of their experiences creating the film, calling it "a bit of a sore point" for them. "The script was lousy," Hewlett recalled, "me and Alan kept rewriting it and putting "Grange Hill" jokes and Benny Hill jokes in, and they obviously weren't getting it. They forgot to film about ten major scenes so we had to animate them ... it was a horrible experience." Talalay complained that the studio interfered significantly in the story, screenplay, and feel of the film. She said that she had been "in sync" and on good terms with Martin and Hewlett until the studio made significant cuts to the film, which she had no control over.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: Peter Milligan wrote an adaptation comic in 1995, and a novelization of the film by Martin Millar was published in 1996. In July 1995, it was reported that Ocean Software had acquired the licence to create console video-game adaptations of the film, though no game was ever released. In 2008, Talalay was negotiating with Sony to obtain the rights to direct a Tank Girl reboot film. Obtaining the rights was said to be a difficult process, due to legal issues of propriety related to the acquisition of MGM and United Artists by Sony and other companies.


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: Despite being a critical and commercial failure, "Tank Girl" is often said to have a cult following. Petty's version of Tank Girl remains a popular character at cosplay events. The music video for Avril Lavigne's 2013 song "Rock n Roll" paid homage to "Tank Girl". Megan Carpentier credits "Tank Girl" as having a strong influence on the aesthetics of the 2020 film "Birds of Prey", and also speculated its influence on the films "The Matrix Reloaded", "" and the character of Hit-Girl in "Kick-Ass". During her interview included on the Blu-ray release of the film in 2013, Petty was asked why she thinks the film still resonates with fans, and replied: "There's no formula as to why "Tank Girl" was so fabulous and why people love it so much ... It was unique, it was new, it was fresh, it was way ahead of its time, and I'm happy that I got to do it and that I'll always have her." Luke Buckmaster from the BBC included the film in his 2015 list of the "ten weirdest superhero films", asserting that: "at its best, director Rachel Talalay captures an ostentatious steampunk vibe that proves weirdly addictive."


title: Tank Girl (film)

text: It was reported in September 2019 that a reboot of the film was in early development with Margot Robbie's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who optioned the rights from MGM.


title: Callus

text: A callus is an area of thickened and sometimes hardened skin that forms as a response to repeated friction, pressure, or other irritation. Since repeated contact is required, calluses are most often found on the feet and hands, but they may occur anywhere on the skin. Some degree of callus, such as on the bottom of the foot, is normal.


title: Callus

text: Calluses are generally not harmful and help prevent blisters, as well as offering protection. However, excessive formation may sometimes lead to other problems, such as a skin ulceration or infection, or cause the affected person to try to offload the affected painful area, which can place excessive stress on the asymptomatic side.


title: Callus

text: Normally, a callus will form on any part of the skin exposed to excess friction over a long period of time. Activities that are known for causing calluses include (but are not limited to) construction work, many sports, wood carving, playing musical instruments, use of a chef's knife, rock climbing, hiking, martial arts, weight training, rowing, BMXing, dancing (especially ballet), chopping wood, monkey bars, pacing and wearing high heels.


title: Callus

text: Although calluses can occur anywhere on the body as a reaction to moderate, constant "grinding" pressure, they are most often found on the foot (where the most pressure and friction are applied). On the feet, arguably the source of the most problematic calluses, they typically form on the metatarsal-phalangeal joint area ("balls of the foot"), heels and small toes due to the compression applied by tightly fitting shoes.


title: Callus

text: Biologically, calluses are formed by the accumulation of terminally differentiated keratinocytes in the outermost layer of skin. Though the cells of calluses are dead, they are quite resistant to mechanical and chemical damage due to extensive networks of cross-linked proteins and hydrophobic keratin intermediate filaments containing many disulfide bonds. It is the natural reaction of the palmar or plantar skin. Too much friction occurring too fast for the skin to develop a protective callus will cause a blister or abrasion instead.


title: Callus

text: Sometimes a callus occurs where there is no rubbing or pressure. These hyperkeratoses can have a variety of causes. Some toxic materials, such as arsenic, can cause thick palms and soles. Some diseases, such as syphilis, can cause thickening of the palms and soles as well as pinpoint hyperkeratoses. There is a benign condition called "keratosis palmaris et plantaris", which produces corns in the creases of the fingers and non-weight bearing spaces of the feet. Some of this may be caused by actinic keratosis, which occurs due to overexposure to sun or with age and hormonal shifts.


title: Callus

text: A corn (or "clavus", plural "clavi") is a cone-shaped callus that penetrates into the dermis, usually on the feet or hands. Corns may form due to chronic pressure or rubbing at a pressure point (in this skin over a bone), or due to scar tissue from a healing wound creating pressure in a weight-bearing area such as the sole of the foot. If there is constant stimulation of the tissue producing the corns, even after the corn is surgically removed, the skin may continue to grow as a corn.


title: Callus

text: The hard part at the center of the corn resembles a funnel with a broad raised top and a pointed bottom. Because of their shape, corns intensify the pressure at the tip and can cause deep tissue damage and ulceration. The scientific name for a corn is "heloma" (plural "helomata"). A hard corn is called a "heloma durum", while a soft corn is called a "heloma molle".


title: Callus

text: The location of the soft corns tends to differ from that of hard corns. Hard corns occur on dry, flat surfaces of skin. Soft corns (frequently found between adjacent toes) stay moist, keeping the surrounding skin soft. The corn's center is not soft however, but indurated.


title: Callus

text: The specific diagnostic workup and treatments for corns may differ substantially from other forms of calluses.


title: Callus

text: Corns and calluses are easier to prevent than to treat. When it is undesirable to form a callus, minimizing rubbing and pressure will prevent callus formation. Footwear should be properly fitted, gloves may be worn, and protective pads, rings or skin dressings may be used. People with poor circulation or sensation should check their skin often for signs of rubbing and irritation so they can minimize any damage.


title: Callus

text: Calluses and corns may heal by themselves eventually, once the irritation is consistently avoided. They may also be dissolved with keratolytic agents containing salicylic acid, sanded down with a pumice stone or silicon carbide sandpaper or filed down with a callus shaver, or pared down by a professional such as a podiatrist.


title: Callus

text: People with diabetes face special skin challenges. Because diabetes affects the capillaries, the small blood vessels which feed the skin, thickening of the skin with callus increases the difficulty of supplying nutrients to the skin. Callus formation is seen in high numbers of patients with diabetes, and together with absent foot pulses and formation of hammer toe, this may be an early sign of individuals at an increased risk for foot ulcers.


title: Callus

text: The stiffness of a callus or corn, coupled with the shear and pressure that caused it, may tear the capillaries or adjoining tissue, causing bleeding within the callus or corn. This can often be result of trying to pick, cut, or shave off the callus by yourself at home. Although the bleeding can be small, sometimes small pools of blood or hematoma are formed. The blood itself is an irritant, a foreign body within the callus that makes the area burn or itch. If the pool of blood is exposed to the outside, infection may follow. Infection may also lead to ulceration. This process can be prevented at several places. Diabetic foot infections are the leading cause of diabetic limb amputation.


title: Callus

text: Calluses in the hands are frequently associated with manual labor and blue-collar workers. During the Gads Hill Train Robbery in 1874, the James–Younger Gang purportedly refrained from robbing men with calloused hands, assuming them to be working class laborers. Such notion is also present in Māori culture, where the words "raupā" and "raupo" refer to hands left cracked and chapped due to manual work, and are used as similes for someone deemed a hard worker.


title: Callus

text: Calluses have also been known to develop on the forehead from the frequent prostrations required in Muslim prayer; known as a prayer bump or "zebiba", such calluses are considered marks of piety in some Muslim countries, and people have been known to take special steps, such as praying on straw mats, to encourage the callus to develop.


title: Callus

text: Calluses may also form on the fingertips from the repeated pressure and friction of playing stringed instruments. This formation of calluses allows the player to repeatedly depress the strings without causing pain. Because of this, callus formation is viewed as something of a rite of passage for beginner string players.


title: Separation of church and state in the United States

text: "Separation of church and state" is a metaphor paraphrased from Thomas Jefferson and used by others in discussions regarding the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."


text: The principle is paraphrased from Thomas Jefferson's "separation between Church & State." It has been used to express the understandings of the intent and function of this amendment, which allows freedom of religion. It is generally traced to a by Jefferson, addressed to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, and published in a Massachusetts newspaper.


text: Jefferson reflects other thinkers, including Roger Williams, a Baptist Dissenter and founder of Providence, Rhode Island. He wrote:


text: In keeping with the lack of an established state religion in the United States, unlike in many European nations at the time, Article Six of the United States Constitution specifies that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."


text: Jefferson's metaphor of a wall of separation has been cited repeatedly by the U.S. Supreme Court. In "Reynolds v. United States" (1879) the Court wrote that Jefferson's comments "may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [First] Amendment." In "Everson v. Board of Education" (1947), Justice Hugo Black wrote: "In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state."


text: In contrast to this emphasis on separation, the Supreme Court in "Zorach v. Clauson" (1952) upheld accommodationism, holding that the nation's "institutions presuppose a Supreme Being" and that government recognition of God does not constitute the establishment of a state church as the Constitution's authors intended to prohibit.


text: Many early immigrants traveled to North America to avoid religious persecution in their homelands, whether based on a different denomination, religion or sect. Some immigrants came from England after the English Civil War and the rise of Protestant dissenting sects in England. Others fled Protestant-Catholic religious conflicts in France and Germany. Immigrants included nonconformists such as the Puritans, who were Protestant Christians fleeing religious persecution from the Anglican King of England, and later Dissenters, such as Baptists.


text: The groups had a variety of attitudes on religious toleration; the Puritans, for instance, initially wanted a totally Puritan society. While some leaders, such as Roger Williams of Rhode Island and Quaker William Penn of Pennsylvania, ensured the protection of religious minorities within their colonies, the Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony in New England established churches, initially Puritan. The Dutch colony of New Netherland established its state Dutch Reformed Church and outlawed all other worship, though enforcement was sparse in what was essentially a trading, mercantile colony. In some cases, jurisdictions wanted religious conformity for financial reasons: the established Church was responsible for poor relief, putting dissenting churches at a significant disadvantage.


text: In several colonies, the establishment ceased to exist in practice at the Revolution, about 1776; this is the date of permanent legal abolition.


text: "Article IV. Section 10. No person within this state shall, upon any pretense, be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshipping God in any manner agreeable to his own conscience, nor be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith and judgment; nor shall he ever be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rate, for the building or repairing any place of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right, or hath voluntarily engaged to do. No one religious society shall ever be established in this state, in preference to another; nor shall any person be denied the enjoyment of any civil right merely on account of his religious principles."


text: From 1780 Massachusetts had a system which required every man to belong to a church, and permitted each church to tax its members, but forbade any law requiring that it be of any particular denomination. This was objected to, as in practice establishing the Congregational Church, the majority denomination, and was abolished in 1833.


text: Until 1877 the New Hampshire Constitution required members of the State legislature to be of the Protestant religion.


text: The North Carolina Constitution of 1776 disestablished the Anglican church, but until 1835 the NC Constitution allowed only Protestants to hold public office. From 1835 to 1876 it allowed only Christians (including Catholics) to hold public office. Article VI, Section 8 of the current NC Constitution forbids only atheists from holding public office. Such clauses were held by the United States Supreme Court to be unenforceable in the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, when the court ruled unanimously that such clauses constituted a religious test incompatible with First and Fourteenth Amendment protections.


text: Religious tolerance for Catholics with an established Church of England was the policy in the former Spanish Colonies of East and West Florida while under British rule.


text: In Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War, the British ceded both East and West Florida back to Spain (see Spanish Florida).


text: Tithes for the support of the Anglican Church in Virginia were suspended in 1776 and never restored. 1786 is the date of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which prohibited any coercion to support any religious body.


text: The Rhode Island Royal Charter obtained in 1663 by Roger Williams and John Clarke contains unique provisions which make it significantly different from the charters granted to the other colonies. It gave the colonists freedom to elect their own governor and write their own laws, within very broad guidelines, and also stipulated that no person residing in Rhode Island could be "molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any differences in opinion in matters of religion".


text: The Flushing Remonstrance shows support for separation of church and state as early as the mid-17th century, stating their opposition to religious persecution of any sort: "The law of love, peace and liberty in the states extending to Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered sons of Adam, which is the glory of the outward state of Holland, so love, peace, and liberty, extending to all in Christ Jesus, condemns hatred, war, and bondage." The document was signed on December 27, 1657, by a group of English citizens in America who were affronted by persecution of Quakers and the religious policies of the Governor of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant. Stuyvesant had formally banned all religions other than the Dutch Reformed Church from being practiced in the colony, in accordance with the laws of the Dutch Republic. The signers indicated their "desire therefore in this case not to judge lest we are judged, neither to condemn least we are condemned, but rather let every man stand or fall to his own Master." Stuyvesant fined the petitioners and threw them in prison until they recanted. However, John Bowne allowed the Quakers to meet in his home. Bowne was arrested, jailed, and sent to the Netherlands for trial; the Dutch court exonerated Bowne.


text: New York Historical Society President and Columbia University Professor of History Kenneth T. Jackson describes the Flushing Remonstrance as "the first thing that we have in writing in the United States where a group of citizens attests on paper and over their signature the right of the people to follow their own conscience with regard to God - and the inability of government, or the illegality of government, to interfere with that."


text: Given the wide diversity of opinion on Christian theological matters in the newly independent American States, the Constitutional Convention believed a government-sanctioned (established) religion would disrupt rather than bind the newly formed union together. George Washington wrote a letter in 1790 to the country's first Jewish congregation, the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island to state:


text: Allowing rights and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it were by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.


text: There were also opponents to the support of any established church even at the state level. In 1773, Isaac Backus, a prominent Baptist minister in New England, wrote against a state-sanctioned religion, saying: "Now who can hear Christ declare, that his kingdom is, not of this world, and yet believe that this blending of church and state together can be pleasing to him?" He also observed that when "church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued." Thomas Jefferson's influential Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was enacted in 1786, five years before the Bill of Rights.


text: Most Anglican ministers, and many Anglicans were Loyalists. The Anglican establishment, where it had existed, largely ceased to function during the American Revolution, though the new States did not formally abolish and replace it until some years after the Revolution.


text: The phrase "[A] hedge or "wall of separation" between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world" was first used by Baptist theologian Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island, in his 1644 book "The Bloody Tenent of Persecution". The phrase was later used by Thomas Jefferson as a description of the First Amendment and its restriction on the legislative branch of the federal government, in an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists (a religious minority concerned about the dominant position of the Congregationalist church in Connecticut):


text: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their "legislature" should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a "wall of separation" between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.


text: Jefferson's letter was in reply to a letter from the Danbury Baptist Association dated October 7, 1801. In an 1808 letter to Virginia Baptists, Jefferson used the same theme:


text: We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.


text: Jefferson and James Madison's conceptions of "separation" have long been debated. Jefferson refused to issue Proclamations of Thanksgiving sent to him by Congress during his presidency, though he did issue a Thanksgiving and Prayer proclamation as Governor of Virginia. Madison issued four religious proclamations while President, but vetoed two bills on the grounds they violated the first amendment. On the other hand, both Jefferson and Madison attended religious services at the Capitol. Years before the ratification of the Constitution, Madison contended "Because if Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body." After retiring from the presidency, Madison wrote of "total separation of the church from the state." " "Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States," Madison wrote, and he declared, "practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States." In a letter to Edward Livingston Madison further expanded, "We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts. do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Govt." Madison's original draft of the Bill of Rights had included provisions binding the States, as well as the Federal Government, from an establishment of religion, but the House did not pass them.


text: Jefferson's opponents said his position was the destruction and the governmental rejection of Christianity, but this was a caricature. In setting up the University of Virginia, Jefferson encouraged all the separate sects to have preachers of their own, though there was a constitutional ban on the State supporting a Professorship of Divinity, arising from his own Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Some have argued that this arrangement was "fully compatible with Jefferson's views on the separation of church and state;" however, others point to Jefferson's support for a scheme in which students at the university would attend religious worship each morning as evidence that his views were not consistent with strict separation. Still other scholars, such as Mark David Hall, attempt to sidestep the whole issue by arguing that American jurisprudence focuses too narrowly on this one Jeffersonian letter while failing to account for other relevant history


text: Jefferson's letter entered American jurisprudence in the 1878 Mormon polygamy case "Reynolds v. U.S.", in which the court cited Jefferson and Madison, seeking a legal definition for the word "religion". Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Johnson Field cited Jefferson's "Letter to the Danbury Baptists" to state that "Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order."


text: Madison noted that Martin Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms marked the beginning of the modern conception of separation of church and state.


text: Jefferson and Madison's approach was not the only one taken in the eighteenth century. Jefferson's Statute of Religious Freedom was drafted in opposition to a bill, chiefly supported by Patrick Henry, which would permit any Virginian to belong to any denomination, but which would require him to belong to some denomination and pay taxes to support it. Similarly, the Constitution of Massachusetts originally provided that "no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience... provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship" (Article II), but also that:


text: Since, in practice, this meant that the decision of who was taxable for a particular religion rested in the hands of the selectmen, usually Congregationalists, this system was open to abuse. It was abolished in 1833. The intervening period is sometimes referred to as an "establishment of religion" in Massachusetts.


text: The Duke of York had required that every community in his new lands of New York and New Jersey support "some" church, but this was more often Dutch Reformed, Quaker, or Presbyterian, than Anglican. Some chose to support more than one church. He also ordained that the tax-payers were free, having paid his local tax, to choose their own church. The terms for the surrender of New Amsterdam had provided that the Dutch would have the liberty of conscience, and the Duke, as an openly divine-right Catholic, was no friend of Anglicanism. The first Anglican minister in New Jersey arrived in 1698, though Anglicanism was more popular in New York.


text: Connecticut had a real establishment of religion. Its citizens did not adopt a constitution at the Revolution but rather amended their Charter to remove all references to the British Government. As a result, the Congregational Church continued to be established, and Yale College, at that time a Congregational institution, received grants from the State until Connecticut adopted a constitution in 1818 partly because of this issue.


text: The absence of an establishment of religion did not necessarily imply that all men were free to hold office. Most colonies had a Test Act, and several states retained them for a short time. This stood in contrast to the Federal Constitution, which explicitly prohibits the employment of any religious test for Federal office, and which through the Fourteenth Amendment later extended this prohibition to the States.


text: For example, the New Jersey Constitution of 1776 provides the liberty of conscience in much the same language as Massachusetts (similarly forbidding the payment of "taxes, tithes or other payments" contrary to conscience). It then provides:


text: That there shall be "no establishment" of any one religious sect in this Province, in preference to another; and that "no Protestant inhabitant" of this Colony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right, merely on account of his religious principles; but that all persons, professing a belief in the faith of "any Protestant sect", who shall demean themselves peaceably under the government, as hereby established, shall be capable of being elected into any office of profit or trust, or being a member of either branch of the Legislature, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity, enjoyed by others their fellow-subjects.


text: The original charter of the Province of East Jersey had restricted membership in the Assembly to Christians; the Duke of York was fervently Catholic, and the proprietors of Perth Amboy, New Jersey were Scottish Catholic peers. The Province of West Jersey had declared, in 1681, that there should be no religious test for office. An oath had also been imposed on the militia during the French and Indian War requiring them to abjure the pretensions of the Pope, which may or may not have been applied during the Revolution. That law was replaced by 1799.


text: Again, it provided in general that all tax-paying freemen and their sons shall be able to "vote", and that no "man, "who acknowledges the being of a God", be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of his religious sentiments or peculiar mode of religious worship."


text: Article Six of the United States Constitution provides that "no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States". Prior to the adoption of the Bill of Rights, this was the only mention of religion in the Constitution.


text: The first amendment to the US Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The two parts, known as the "establishment clause" and the "free exercise clause" respectively, form the textual basis for the Supreme Court's interpretations of the "separation of church and state" doctrine. Three central concepts were derived from the 1st Amendment which became America's doctrine for church-state separation: no coercion in religious matters, no expectation to support a religion against one's will, and religious liberty encompasses all religions. In sum, citizens are free to embrace or reject a faith, and support for religion—financial or physical—must be voluntary, and all religions are equal in the eyes of the law with no special preference or favoritism.


text: The First Congress' deliberations show that its understanding of the separation of church and state differed sharply from that of their contemporaries in Europe. As the 19th-century historian Philip Schaff observed:


text: The American separation of church and state rests upon respect for the church; the [European anticlerical] separation, on indifference and hatred of the church, and of religion itself... The constitution did not create a nation, nor its religion and institutions. It found them already existing and was framed for the purpose of protecting them under a republican form of government, in a rule of the people, by the people, and for the people.


text: An August 15, 1789, entry in Madison's papers indicates he intended for the establishment clause to prevent the government imposition of religious beliefs on individuals. The entry says: "Mr. Madison said he apprehended the meaning of the words to be, that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience. ..."


text: Some legal scholars, such as John Baker of LSU, theorize that Madison's initial proposed language—that Congress should make no law regarding the establishment of a "national religion"—was rejected by the House, in favor of the more general "religion" in an effort to appease the Anti-Federalists. To both the Anti-Federalists and the Federalists, the very word "national" was a cause for alarm because of the experience under the British crown. During the debate over the establishment clause, Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts took issue with Madison's language regarding whether the government was a national government, or a federal government (in which the states retained their individual sovereignty), which Baker suggests compelled Madison to withdraw his language from the debate.


text: Following the argument between Madison and Gerry, Rep. Samuel Livermore of New Hampshire proposed language stating that "Congress shall make no laws touching religion or the rights of conscience." This raised an uproar from members, such as Rep. Benjamin Huntingdon of Connecticut and Rep. Peter Sylvester of New York, who worried the language could be used to harm religious practice.


text: Others, such as Rep. Roger Sherman of Connecticut, believed the clause was unnecessary because the original Constitution only gave Congress stated powers, which did not include establishing a national religion.


text: Anti-Federalists such as Rep. Thomas Tucker of South Carolina moved to strike the establishment clause completely because it could preempt the religious clauses in the state constitutions. However, the Anti-Federalists were unsuccessful in persuading the House of Representatives to drop the clause from the first amendment.


text: The Senate went through several more narrowly targeted versions before reaching the contemporary language. One version read, "Congress shall make no law establishing one religious sect or society in preference to others, nor shall freedom of conscience be infringed," while another read, "Congress shall make no law establishing one particular religious denomination in preference to others." Ultimately, the Senate rejected the more narrowly targeted language.


text: At the time of the passage of the Bill of Rights, many states acted in ways that would now be held unconstitutional. All of the early official state churches were disestablished by 1833 (Massachusetts), including the Congregationalist establishment in Connecticut. It is commonly accepted that under the doctrine of Incorporation—which uses the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to hold the Bill of Rights applicable to the states—these state churches could not be reestablished today.


text: Yet the provisions of state constitutions protected religious liberty, particularly the so-called freedom of conscience. During the nineteenth century (and before the incorporation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution through the Fourteenth Amendment), litigants turned to these provisions to challenge Sunday laws (blue laws), bible-reading in schools, and other ostensibly religious regulations.


text: David Sehat, professor of American Intellectual and Cultural History at Georgia State University, writes that:


text: The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Amendment XIV) is one of the post-Civil War amendments, intended to secure rights for former slaves. It includes the due process and equal protection clauses among others. The amendment introduces the concept of incorporation of all relevant federal rights against the states. While it has not been fully implemented, the doctrine of incorporation has been used to ensure, through the Due Process Clause and Privileges and Immunities Clause, the application of most of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights to the states.