Update: Trump Between Mushroom Clouds & Nazi $$$ Signs Billboard Appears In Downtown Phoenix

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(Photo: Johana Restrepo/The Republic)

Updated: Santa Monica, Ca artist Karen Fiorito accepted a commission from Phoeniz gallery La Melgosa for a billboard dedicated to Donald Trump. The billboard is located near Grand Avenue and Taylor Street in downtown Phoenix.

La Melgosa commissioned Fiorito to do a similar anti-President George Bush billboard in 2004, when she was a graduate student at Arizona State University. 

"I was given the opportunity to just say what I want," Fiorita told The Arizona Republic. 

The result is a large billboard sign featuring a photo of Trump backed by two mushroom clouds typically associated with nuclear explosions. Swastikas on either side of Trump have been manipulated to look like dollar signs.  

March 19, 2017 update: Beatrice Moore, owner of the billboard and a long-time patron of the arts on Grand Avenue, says the billboard will remain as long as Trump is president. As expected, artist Fiorito is receiving death threats on a much escalated level than when the Bush presidency billboard went up in 2004.

Read more about Beatrice Moore: Grand Avenue May Never Be Home to Fancy Coffee Shops and Cell Phone Stores, and That's Just Fine with Beatrice Moore Phoenix New Times

(Photo: Johana Restrepo/The Republic)

At Austin's SXSW Female Heroines Kick Ass Back: Anne Hathaway, Brie Larson, Charlize Theron

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As Austin's SXSW festival comes to a close, a new kind of hero took center stage, writes Joanna Robinson for Vanity Fair. "the battle-tested and badly bruised action heroine."

In a year when throngs of women are still reeling from Clinton's presidential election loss and the ascendancy of a narcissistic, Twitter-crazy megalomaniac to the White House, our commitment to resistance is bolstered by kickass heroines who get knocked down and rise up again. They include Anne Hathaway in 'Colossal'; Brie Larson in 'Free Fire'; Charlize Theron in 'Atomic Blonde'. 

There’s been a resistance growing—even among those who clamor for more female-fronted stories in film and television—against the catch-all phrase “strong female character.” Those three little words are often thrown up in defense of characters who are two-dimensional at best. If she can punch like the guys (or, as is often the case, better than the guys), then she must be strong, right? But actual progress is not about women being superior to their male counterparts; it’s about them being treated equally. And when most action films starring women are precious about their leading ladies, seeing the real consequence of violence on a female body is both shocking and refreshing. The heroines of SXSW offerings Free Fire, Atomic Blonde, and Colossal, just like generations of male heroes before them, grit their teeth through swollen faces, split lips, and bullet wounds to keep fighting their way out.

Read on: 'The Women of SXSW Take a Licking and Keep on Kicking Vanity Fair