As anyone who’s ever had a fulfilling hookup app experience can attest, even the most contrived and artificial scenarios can yield moments of genuine connection and intimacy. Jerrod Carmichael has plenty of those moments in “Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show,” his new Max project chronicling the comedian’s biennial whirlwind.

As our nation continues to be blasted with arctic chills and snow, things in Hollywood are heating up. Some industries enter the year gradually, but movies and television make a grand entrance at the top of the year as the award season blazes on.

Ever been to a theatrical production or seen a film and asked yourself, or the person next to you, how someone built up the courage to perform a nude scene? Better yet, have you ever marveled at how realistic the sex scene was or the perfection of the characters' intimacy?

Nathan Lee Graham is crystal clear about his personal and professional identity. 

"My pronouns are he, him—diva. And I'm a very proud Black gay man," he says. 

On November 18, writer and director Elegance Bratton's "The Inspection," starring Jeremy Pope, Raúl Castillo, and Aaron Dominguez, with Gabrielle Union and Bokeem Woodbine, will hit theaters across the country in limited release. Bratton ("Pier Kids," "Buck"), who is openly gay and a former U.S. Marine, has written and directed an epic American drama that is unapologetically Black and queer. These two ingredients would have almost ensured a mainstream film to be dead on arrival before the 2017 Best Picture Oscar win for "Moonlight."

Inspired by actual events, "The Inspection" tells the story of Ellis French (Pope), a young Black gay man rejected by his mother, Inez French (Union), because of his sexual orientation. After being kicked out of the family home, French is thrust into homelessness in New York City. With few options for his future, he joins the Marines to win his mother's love. In the era of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the former discriminatory policy prohibiting out LGBTQ service members, French faces the grueling requirements of boot camp, blatant homophobia, and an unrelenting determination to succeed.

Six years in the making, Bratton tells The Reckoning, "The Inspection" began as part of the narrative of a planned autobiography that he ultimately decided to shelve. He credits his husband and producing partner, Chester Algernal-Gordon, for encouraging him to bring his life story to the big screen.

"You need to tell a story that brings audiences to a place they could never go unless you take them there. It has to be really personal," Bratton recalls Algernal-Gordon saying to him at the time. "He insisted that The Inspection would be the one that would change our lives."

The cannon of Black horror films is limited. The cannon of horror films featuring Black queer characters, even more so. It's a sobering reality that Black fans of the genre have endured for decades until the mainstream explosion of Academy-Award-winning writer/director Jordan Peele's cinematic success. In the spirit of Peele, Atlanta-based actor, writer, and filmmaker Isaiah Rice is on a mission to change the face of horror again.

An openly gay man and lifelong horror fan, Rice is turning the 1980s-inspired grindhouse horror aesthetic on its head in his latest short film, "He's Watching You." The film follows Sidney(Rice) and Ryan(Schyler Tillett), a young millennial 20-something Black queer couple visiting a cabin in the woods for a romantic getaway to rekindle their broken relationship. Sidney is a recovering drug addict fighting to stay clean after rehab. Ryan is a recent law school graduate with hopes that the cabin trip will bring them closer together now that Sidney has reached a level of sobriety. While their backgrounds differ, one key thing remains true– their love for one another. However, as romance unfurls at the beginning of the night, it ends in horror with a fight for survival.

"While the core leads are two Black queer men in a relationship, the focus of the story is not centered around their sexuality," Rice says. "This is an issue that most films focus on when it comes to having queer characters. The general queer storylines seem to focus on the trauma of coming out of the closet, hiding your sexuality from society, or at times being oversexualized. "He's Watching You" is a grindhouse horror film, but it has nothing to do with the character's sexualities. They happen to be a queer couple in the wrong place at the wrong time," he says.

A dance and political science alum of Bates College, Rice tells The Reckoning the seed for "He's Watching You" was first planted after expressing his frustration to a film professor about the lack of representation of Black queer couples in horror.

On November 12, 2017, at 6:49 pm, I received a text that read: “Antron has transitioned.”

The official cause of death was cancer, but HIV was the cause. I’ve never written that publicly before, although it’s true. Antron-Reshaud Olukayode was a poet, artist, and community activist, but more importantly, he was my friend.

2017 was an important year for me as a creative. In retrospect, it’s hard to wrap my head around just how much work I was able to curate. I produced podcasts and multiple live events, shot countless photoshoots, produced a music video, co-curated an art display at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, and even won an award.

Do fat people exist in the future?

That's likely a question that many have never thought to ask. It has been argued that people of size are some of the most openly discriminated against and marginalized. So, for some, thinking about fatness and fat people existing in the future may be hard to imagine.

But not for writer Alex Smith, a 46-year-old, Philadelphia-based artist, with roots in the Punk music scene. Smith is not afraid of anarchy. In some ways, he thrives on it, and people are taking notice. His newest work, "Black Vans," takes his ambitions to uncharted territory and places Black, queer, fatness center stage.

"If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this," Smith tells The Reckoning. "It was a no-brainer that the main character was going to be a fat, Black bear, period," when discussing his comic book series and its lead character, "Bo," who is of Afro-Latin descent.

Three Black gay men—a Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright, a Tony award—nominated actor, and a possible future Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter— are having the time of their lives professionally and creatively. And to some extent, they credit the coronavirus pandemic.

Rob Milton, 33, is one of them.

While pundits and social scientists have debated whether the pandemic has led to a “Great Revelation” of some sort, Milton, and others, credit the pandemic with giving him the motivation needed to have the career he always wanted.

“I have pretty much surrounded myself with people who are creative, and post-pandemic, a beautiful thing has happened,” Milton told The Reckoning. “In some respects, the pandemic leveled the playing field. It caused a lot of the people I know to stop and think about how important it is to do the thing or things you are called to do.”

For just about everyone, year one of the Coronavirus pandemic bought both losses and gains. Self-described “outrageous storyteller” Ashton Pina was no exception: Starting the lockdown as an up-and-coming communications professional in a committed relationship, the queer storyteller ultimately ended the first chapter of the Covid crisis as an unemployed, single man.

From those losses, however, came one tremendous gain—the framework for a cinematic exploration of love and transition that, until recently, had only lived in his very creative head.

The fruit of his journey materializes in “Nana’s Boys,” a feature-length film – his first – set to make its local debut at Out on Film in Atlanta this month. In it, Pina explores themes of beginnings and endings, artifice and reality, hope and despair, all against the backdrop of a seasoned relationship between two Black gay men.

In his debut novel, “Desire Lines,” author Cary Alan Johnson births a story about Black queer friendship, desire, and addiction during the onset of the HIV epidemic in New York City in the 1980s. Desire Lines marks Johnson’s first foray into long-form fiction after spending much of the last decade breathing life into characters aimed at centering the experiences of Black queer men in an HIV narrative where they have historically been forgotten.

“Of all the really great books, movies, and shows produced about gay men’s experience with AIDS in the 1980s, none have focused on Black gay men,” said Johnson. “Of all the great work about cocaine and crack addiction, none focused on the experience of Black gay men. The 1980s was a period of hysteria and pain, but it was also a moment of intense introspection and spiritual alignment. You either sank or you swam. Many of us swam and continue to swim, and I want to tell this story.”

In Desire Lines, readers follow an unnamed Black gay narrator as he grows up in Brooklyn captivated by a vision of life on the other side of the river, where the sparkle and glitter of Manhattan beckon. Coming into adulthood, he finds himself living in a five-floor walk-up in Hell's Kitchen just as the AIDS epidemic is hitting the city. We follow him and his group of friends as they experience the first wave of illness and death and then accompany him on a two-year journey to Zaire, Central Africa, where he must confront corruption and homophobia in new and unexpected ways.

Los Angeles-based gay filmmaker Michael Donte hasn’t been called to preach, but he has been called through his art and his latest short film “The Spirit God Gave Us,” to create a world that reimagines what is possible for Black queer people outside of the confines of the Black church.

A multi-hyphenate talent, in addition to directing, Donte also pens the screenplay and is a producer of Spirit. Full disclosure: Counter Narrative Project, which powers The Reckoning, is also an executive producer. The 20-minute short film, which stars Nic Ashe (“Queen Sugar,” “Choir Boy'”) and Elijah Boothe (“Luke Cage,” “Coin Heist”), had its world premiere in May at the Inside Out LGBTQ Film Festival in Toronto. “The Spirit God Gave Us” is an intersectional story of faith and queer love through the lens of Malcolm (Ashe), and Shamont (Boothe), two young Black men who volunteer as ushers for their Baptist church and are faced with reconciling societal and religious expectations with an intense longing for connection and intimacy.

While the history of homophobia in the Black church is well documented, Donte tells The Reckoning that he decided to take a different approach in his screenplay for Spirit.

“Writing the script was a kind of therapy for me,” Donte said. “Challenging the narratives that we often see in media—that was the hardest part about writing the script. I wanted to acknowledge the conflict without making it the centerpiece. And I think we did that,” he said.

A week after his appearance on the popular pop culture podcast, For Colored Nerds, author Aaron Foley hadn’t listened to the episode.

“I trust that it is good,” he told The Reckoning. “I am not a big fan of hearing my voice recorded, so I haven’t listened to it and probably won’t.”

Just being on the show was a career highlight for Foley, who works full-time as a senior editor for PBS NewsHour’s Communities Initiative. To be there talking about his debut novel, Boys Come First made it all sweeter.

“It’s all been unreal, to be honest,” he said. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all.”

As a journalist, Foley seeks to tell authentic, informative, and educational stories about real people and real life. Boys Come First is no different. As a Black, gay, millennial from Detroit, he wanted to tell a truthful story about his beloved city and Black gay men. It is something, he said, he does not always get to do in journalism.

Sandwiched in an alleyway on the northeast side of Washington D.C., Black queer, gay, and lesbian artists like Wayson Jones cultivated fertile ground in a coffeehouse. What they did in the cramped space is the stuff of legends, yet the coffeehouse is long gone—much like the city of old. A documentary recently released online captures what the coffeehouse meant—and continues to mean—to Washington, D.C. as well as to Black and queer histories.

"Fierceness Served! The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse" has been making its rounds at select screenings. The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse was a performance and rehearsal space for a cohort of artists, a gathering spot; plus a meeting place for political organizations. This was almost hallowed ground for Black artists to share and workshop their craft. Jones, Essex Hemphill, Cheryl Clarke, Audre Lorde, Blackberry, Casselberry-Dupree, and Pomo Afro Homos all stepped foot into the former carriage house-turned-coffeehouse between 8th, 9th, I, and K Streets, NE. The space at 816 Eye Street, NE was brick, the size of a large walk-in closet, but had great acoustics.

"The intimacy lent itself to that feeling of being part of the family," Jones said.

The film "Fierceness Served! The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse," celebrates this time.

“How can you believe in something you’ve never seen?”

It’s a question that plagued a young Jamal Jordan during his formative years in Mobile, Alabama as he acknowledged his same-sex attraction as the thing that made him different from some of the other boys in the Gulf Coast community that he called home. The something that he’d never seen was queer couples of color. It would be decades after a young Jordan’s initial realization of the erasure of Black LGBTQ+ couples in mainstream media that the adult journalist would take control of the narrative in a viral story for The New York Times, and the subsequent book by the same title.

In between breaks on the red carpet at the July 1 launch party of iElevate+ TV, a new Black LGBTQ+ on-demand live streaming platform, CEO OC Allen III emphasized that the time is now for a digital space to center Black LGBTQ+ content and storytellers.

A throng of supporters filed into "Book Boutique," a new Black-owned bookstore inside Atlantic Station to celebrate the beginning of an exciting era in Black LGBTQ+ entrepreneurship and collaboration. The event preceded the holiday weekend sneak peek that gave viewers a glimpse of the content Allen and his team have curated over the last six months—setting the stage for underrepresented Black LGBTQ+ content to be seen on a global stage to an underserved audience.

Filmmaking and producing duo Deondray and Quincy Gossfield have been back at their East Point home for over a week since their successful debut at The Tribeca Film Festival, but the energy of New York City and the industry buzz generated from their short film FLAMES is showing no sign of being extinguished anytime soon. Emmy-Award-winning lesbian filmmaker Lena Waithe is responsible for the Gossfield’s return to the director’s chair after spending the last 11 years as reality television producers.

If Kipper Jones, 59, could go back in time to give himself advice, the celebrated songwriter and vocalist says he would simply say, “don’t be afraid.” For the man who famously penned hits for Vanessa Williams (“The Right Stuff,” “Comfort Zone'') and Brandy (“I Wanna Be Down,” “Brokenhearted”) that catapulted their careers and made them superstars, Jones has spent most his life running towards success and running away from himself. As a self-identified same-gender-loving man, Jones often wrote about love in songs that shot up the Billboard Hot 100 chart, while denying himself the experiences in his lyrics.

For the men that were there, any mention of the space immediately takes them to a time and place where the dance floor provided refuge from the grim realities outside its walls. In its early incarnation, The Warehouse catered to a membership-only clientele made up primarily of Black gay men. The man who people came to see, DJ Frankie Knuckles, was the master conductor of many a legendary night. Knuckles once described the Warehouse as “a church for people who have fallen from grace.” Knuckles, a Black, gay native New Yorker, established himself as a tastemaker in Chicago. A pioneer who manually created extensions of rare groove records with a blade, he laid the foundation for an entirely new genre of music: House.