| Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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That George Santos interview is trash. The Color Purple performance that deserves an Oscar. Cameron Diaz speaks the truth. Cher having perfect taste. A moment in history.
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Just when we thought we were safely coasting into the new year with the last 12 months of aggravations in the rear view mirror, George Santos, as is his wont, has careened into our path, forcing us to take one last emergency detour into annoyance and disgust. This time, however, it's not entirely his fault. We're a community of Dr. Frankensteins, and he is our media monster. But here's the thing: We don't have to nurture him. He doesn't have to thrive. We can ignore him, starve him of the attention he craves, and allow him to wither away. So why don't we?
The most annoying part of pop culture passing off the disgraced congressman—who defrauded constituents, broke laws, and is facing federal charges—like a cheeky little bugger who we can't just quit is that we asked for it. Santos' interview this week with Ziwe, the internet personality whose talk show ran on Showtime for two seasons and who is known for interviewing menaces of the zeitgeist, exists because we willed it to. Following Santos' expulsion from Congress, people on social media posted their desire for this interview to happen, prompting an entire production to manifest; this was not a pre-existing show that merely booked Santos as a guest. My response to that is: Why???
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Platforming crooks and the most despicable of political attention whores has become a bit of an obsession of ours as a society, with letting them do a cha-cha-cha on Dancing With the Stars being the quickest and most reliable path to a lucrative talking head contract on cable news. But I'm surprised that we've devised new routes to that morally corrupt career trajectory with Santos, who went viral because people thought it would be hilarious to book him for Cameo videos—in which he's paid to send personalized messages—and has had people suggesting he'd make for an iconic Bravo reality star. We've normalized a perverted impulse—a fetish, really—for turning tyranists into court jesters. Yet even that implies the people cheering on the "naughty" entertainment value derived from these moral-less crooks are celebrating from any high court of substance. Instead, they're social media lemmings cooing "yaaas" affirmations at content being served to them. Clips like this video capitalize on the assumption that we don't care about any responsible ramifications for anointing a person like Santos as a pop-culture guilty pleasure. Moments from the Ziwe interview were clipped, meme'd, and spread across social media in the same fashion that the biggest moments from our favorite TV shows are. Ziwe is good at her job of antagonizing and trapping her guests. I just fail to find amusement in the obviousness of Santos being the target, nor in his volleying with her; you can see his self-satisfaction, fully aware that he's creating content that people online will lap up and praise him for. Take the sequence in which we learn that Santos, who exhibits no shame, claims he doesn't know who queer civil rights activists Martha P. Johnson, James Baldwin, and Harvey Milk are. In what way is this an own? Who are the people who are wildly entertained by the "surprise" that *George Santos* is uneducated about these historical figures? In other moments, he tosses off one liners with confidence, like he fully prepared for this. I don't just hate that he is being passed off as entertainment; I loathe that he even comes off as shrewd. This was a platform. This was an audition reel, provided by the producers of this video. And Santos booked the part.
He's not exposed in any way as the corrupt dipshit we already know him to be, thanks to actual journalism and reporting. This is exposure, the on ramp to what will depressingly be a lucrative career as a media personality. Why are we all so eager to be complicit in gifting that to him? That's what is especially upsetting about this. It's not like Santos hired a team that worked doggedly to get him access to publicity. He was barely out of office before people on social media asked for this interview to happen. We begged for this.
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That's the most damning part, and the point in which the interview revealed itself as a failure. Ziwe, I guess provocatively, asks Santos what we can do to get him to go away. He lights up. "Stop inviting me to your gigs," he says. "The lesson is to stop inviting you places," she responds, to which he says, "But you can't. Because people want the content." His eyes radiated evil as he said it. It was unsettling, as if he had summoned the spirits of every movie villain as he said it. Only this isn't a movie. It's real life, at a time when we've not just allowed but encouraged narcissistic depravity from the people who are supposed to be in service of justice, our future, and our safety. People like Santos know that they have the safety net of fame, notoriety, and a booming media career as a reward for their so-called entertaining failure. They've seen it happen to others before them plenty of times.
I beg for this to end in the New Year, yet I suspect the costume designers at The Masked Singer are already deciding what to dress Santos up as, while CNN and Fox News' producers are competing to offer him contracts.
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One of the Best Performances of the Year |
The Color Purple is one of award season's last contenders to debut, and, as has been the case for the four decades since Alice Walker published the novel it's based on, there's so much to talk about. In fact, the film—an adaptation of the Broadway musical more than a remake of Steven Spielberg's 1985 movie—is very much a product of being "so much." Some might even say "too much;" I think it's admirable how many big swings director Blitz Bazawule takes, even if not every one lands with the same impact. But there's one thing that I expect a unanimous opinion about from everyone who sees the film: Danielle Brooks' stunning barn-burner of a turn as Sofia, the performance I'm most passionate about scoring an Oscar nomination this year. Sofia is a person who exists on a more electrified plane than the rest of us. Her radiance is irresistible, and her pain is unbearable. Brooks summons that full spectrum in Sofia's early, famous monologue that Oprah Winfrey also delivered in the original film, leading to a performance of the song "Hell No" that got mid-screening applause when I first watched the film. And that energy continues the entire movie, with Sofia right alongside Fantasia Barrino's Celie as they fight for dignity and hope.
Lightness and gravity are dual parts of the human experience, which Brooks seems to acutely be aware of not just with her work in The Color Purple, but throughout her career—beginning with her breakout turn as Taystee in Orange Is the New Black. What's always been inspirational about her performances is the active, infectious ability to find joy, without discounting the reality of darkness.
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I, like many viewers, was stunned that the same actress who brought Taystee's sunny comic relief to that show arrived just as skilled when dramatizing the bleakness of the character's arc as the series progressed. Sofia in The Color Purple is one of the most ecstatic, enthusiastically fun characters in America's cultural canon, but she is also a testament to the cruel reality of how often brutal, unjust trauma threatens the brightest lights among us. The most heartbreaking fact is that Sofia expects to experience said trauma, whether it's during her confrontation with Celie that becomes the "Hell No" number, or the fact that she, within seconds, knows what's about to befall her after an altercation in the town square, and pleads for her kids to be ushered away before her inevitable beating happens, so that they will not see. Brooks crafts a character cognizant of her past, the reality of her lot in life, and crusading for a better future. Give her an Oscar for it. |
Cameron Diaz Is Onto Something |
I love all the attention Cameron Diaz has been getting for the interview in which she says "we should normalize separate bedrooms for couples," because a) I love whenever flawless celebrity Cameron Diaz is getting attention and b) she is right. |
"To me, I would literally, I have my house, you have yours. We have the family house in the middle. I will go and sleep in my room. You go sleep in your room. I'm fine," she said on Molly Sim's podcast, speaking a truth that Congress should sign into law. "And we have the bedroom in the middle that we can convene in for our, you know, relations," she added, having thought through everything.
I feel this sentiment deeply. I'm a person who, when I'm with somebody, either wants to feel so viscerally bonded to them that, if I could crawl inside their skin, it wouldn't be close enough—or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, gets so annoyed by intimacy that if the person dares breathe the same air as me I could murder them. Diaz's solution is perfect for people as ridiculous and unjustified in their whims as I am. I thank her for her service.
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It is incredibly difficult to release a new holiday song in the age of "All I Want for Christmas Is You" omnipresence that feels like it could actually be a future classic, but Cher pulled off that Miracle with "DJ Play a Christmas Song." Only helping that argument is Kelly Clarkson's recent cover of it during the "Kellyoke" portion of her talk show, proving that it is ripe for interpretation and, as such, Kevin Fallon belting it to no one in particular as he walks around his apartment procrastinating cleaning—the mark of truly great art. (Watch it here.)
That Cher watched Clarkson's performance and posted about her ecstatic reaction online means so much to me, who says daily prayers to both pop divas. Here's Cher's appropriate, highly correct reaction to Clarkson's rendition:
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It's Time to Come Forward |
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It's been four years since Cats was released and caused the pandemic. How are you commemorating? |
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Anyone But You: Turns out Glen Powell being so handsome and so charming is great for rom-coms. (Now in theaters) What If?: A rare win in a rough year for Marvel. (Now on Disney+) All of Us Strangers: Simply one of the most gorgeous films of the year. Andrew Scott deserves an Oscar nom. (Now in theaters)
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