| 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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Why Kate Middleton's Photoshop disaster is so funny. Why aren't we talking more about this TV episode? One of the most fascinating TV episodes I've seen. A message to all you "I'm Just Ken" lovers. It's called fashion, sweetie.
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There's a question that's at the top of mind for the entire world. It's a wonder the global economy hasn't completely shut down. The effort it takes to quiet the preoccupation long enough to drive a car, go to work, or even cook a meal—frankly, the human race is at the risk of extinction until the question is answered. On Tuesday night's episode of Watch What Happens Live, Andy Cohen articulated it on behalf of all of us: "What the fuck is going on with Kate Middleton?"
He raised the question to the unofficial British ambassador to the United States, John Oliver, who, after acknowledging how wild the Photoshop controversy surrounding the allegedly missing princess is, deadpanned, "There's a non-zero chance she died 18 months ago."
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The whole Kate Middleton saga is complicated to talk about. (If you need to be caught up on the story, I'd be interested to learn how you figured out the physics of how a human could actually live under a rock.) My conscience and my ghoulish love of dark humor have been engaged in a savage Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots battle for days now. The longer this has gone on and the wilder the twists are, the darker the theorizing about what's happening has become—and the more likely those theories are to be right. But skating on top of that cold, concerning frozen lake of darkness is how truly bizarre all of this is. In the days since Photoshopgate, the bizarreness has been doing triple axels and camel spins so impressive the International Olympic Committee is considering allowing the scandal into official competition. I appreciated that brief exchange between Cohen and Oliver—it's only 45 seconds—because it encapsulated that moral conflict perfectly: We didn't want to care about this, it got too outrageous to ignore, and it's possible something legitimately bad is going on, but it's reached a level of preposterousness with this Photoshop fiasco that it feels acceptable to make jokes about it. And what I'm grateful for when it comes to this Photoshop act, and of this whole royal circus, is that it allows us to briefly cast aside the uncomfortable nature of the scandal to delight in one of pop culture's greatest clown shows: celebrity Photoshop fails. It's a temporary internet lobotomy. We don't have to think about what's actually happening with Kate Middleton. We can just laugh at the Photoshop thing, because if there is one universal truth when it comes to famous people it's that their Photoshop disasters are inherently funny. I love when this happens, because it's like: Did they not think we would notice? There's hilarious schadenfreude in the idea that the celebrity obsession with looking as perfect as possible is so extreme that it reaches a point of delusion where they think they can get away with an egregious Photoshop. Or when it's something like a magazine cover or ad campaign that's the offender, my overworked, broke ass smugly giggles that so much money was spent on an image that so many highly paid, allegedly important people had to approve—and no one flagged the mistake. Or, in the case of Middleton, there's something almost cartoonish about the royal palace—like, the institution behind the literal King of England—scrambling amidst an international scandal and thinking that it would help to release an image with Photoshop so shitty, newswires sent out a red alert to stop the presses. I can almost hear the Benny Hill theme playing in the background as they hit send. It's the goofiest thing. It's always hysterical when anyone, like one of us normies, posts bad Photoshop somewhere, thinking they're pulling a digital fast one. Yeah, Brittany, I am sure your waist is smaller than your left thigh and that door frame behind you isn't digitally warped—it's definitely curved that way in real life. But there's a certain hubris attached when public figures are involved that really dials up the buffoonery. Remember Khloe Kardashian's freakishly giant hand? It's a Photoshop fail so brazen, it transcends into art; I almost want to frame it and hang it in my apartment. (Or maybe it wasn't Photoshop. Check out Ariana Grande's thumb here. Perhaps there's a Hollywood big-hand epidemic!) |
Lindsay Lohan apparently also lived somewhere with one of those famous curved door frames. |
Aubrey O'Day used to Photoshop herself into beautiful vistas all around the world, pretending she was on vacation there. Absolutely iconic behavior that makes me love her even more. |
When it comes to magazine Photoshop disasters, this cover for Vanity Fair's 2018 Hollywood issue is the Hindenburg. That is, of course, unless Oprah Winfrey has had three hands and Reese Witherspoon's been walking around disguising her third leg this entire time. |
The obvious scrutiny that a photo of Middleton would receive when released in the middle of this real-life telling of Gone Girl 2: Princess Edition makes it truly baffling that the palace would distribute something that's been edited. But the meticulousness and immediacy with which people on the internet would end up picking apart the photo and explaining its errors was astonishing. At this point in 2024, after all we've seen internet culture accomplish—and destroy—when rallied, maybe it was foolish to be surprised. Once the Extremely Online harnessed the power of the Swifties to get on the Kate Middleton case, it was over for that ragged palace and ole Prince Willy. |
A favorite procrastination activity is to scroll through one of the many lists there are of these Photoshop failures. Kate Middleton, wherever you are, you are in elite company. |
I Can't Believe This Happened |
There are simply not enough people talking about Lori Loughlin on the most recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Once in a while I'm reminded of just how much news there is—and how quickly we move on from the things that briefly seem like the biggest stories in the world. That Loughlin appeared as herself in Curb, with the storyline she was given, isn't headline-making news is one of those cases. Do you remember how big of a deal it was when the college admissions scandal broke? Wildly rich people paid more money than I'll make in my lifetime writing this silly lil' newsletter to fake college applications, fraud test scores, and bribe admissions officials so that they're twerpy rich-kid children could get into good colleges (only to drop out and become influencers)? It was the biggest news story when it broke, kind of for the same reason the Kate Middleton Photoshop brouhaha is so wild: The hubris and delusion that brainwashes you when you become rich and/or famous is astounding. Y'all really thought you'd get away with it??? Part of what made the scandal really capture our gobsmacked attention was that there were legitimate celebrities involved, and those celebrities were actually arrested and served jail time. Among them was Loughlin, who was affectionately known as Full House's Aunt Becky and is now unaffectionately known as someone who would probably be the villain on the Snowpiercer train. |
Back to Curb: Sunday night's episode had a subplot in which Larry David was roped into the effort to un-cancel Loughlin as she endeavors to re-enter the L.A. social scene and get back into acting. The baggage from her scandal is a part of the plot. The fictional (I hope) Curb flourish is that, scandal aside, she's an unapologetically horrible person who takes advantage of her Rich White Lady privilege constantly, assuming she'll never get caught. She cheats at golf, bribes service workers, and lies about being handicapped in order to get preferred parking. And despite all that, she gets welcomed back to Hollywood with open arms. The storyline is brutally reflective of how we operate as a society when it comes to how we forgive and forget—which is to say, conveniently forget as long as you're paying us off somehow.
The most damning part of that truth is that Loughlin participated in a storyline about that very thing, and we're barely reacting to it. It's a funny episode of Curb, but it's not, based on the news response, any sort of scandal that Loughlin's role and this arc happened. Just another Sunday night on HBO. It's truly wild to me.
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I had an opportunity in this last year that I will never stop thinking about or being grateful for. I got to go to Tanzania to spend a week with National Geographic filmmakers as they guided me around the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater showing me the locations and wildlife they filmed for the groundbreaking new series Queens. It is the first wildlife series from any network made by an almost entirely female-led team, and also the first time a show focuses on the matriarchs of the species it's documenting. It's truly wild for that to be the case in 2024, but it's true. It's also, because of this fresh perspective, one of the most engaging, surprising, and riveting series of its kind that I've watched. |
Please read all about that experience here. But I also wanted to highlight one other special part of the series. Its final installment is a "making of" episode directed by Faith Musembi. We all know what "making of" features are. The filmmakers brag about how taxing the shoot was, boringly narrate the technicalities behind a big shot or scene, and show off the fancy new camera equipment they got to use. They're not, let's say, enriching to watch. (They are, let's say, masturbatory.) Episode 7 of Queens however, is an emotional documentary in its own right, fitting right alongside the other episodes of the series. We learn about the lives of the women who were, most for the first time and only because of Queens' mission, given the opportunity to work in the field with the animals filming this show. The thrill and the struggle is immediately palpable, as is the tenacity required to pull off a series like this. But in depicting the connections that these women make with each other—and, in several scenes that might actually make you weep, with the wildlife they're following—the episode illuminates the power of a project like Queens in another, visceral way. The whole series is about disrupting the norm we're conditioned to by decades of white, male, Western filmmakers who held the power. That final episode is the gorgeous coda. |
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I'm a dweeb who is obsessed with the Oscars the way that normal people obsess over sports or comic books or anything that doesn't involve Meryl Streep. So I feel comfortable saying that Ryan Gosling's "I'm Just Ken" performance is one of the greatest Oscar moments ever. It's not just that he nailed it. It's the fact that a movie like Barbie could defy expectations in such a profound way and shift our entire culture's attitude toward cinema and the simple act of going to the movie theater, and then, at Movie's Biggest Night, celebrate that achievement so perfectly. It's not often we get a TV moment that meets the cultural moment! All that aside, I find the people who were blown away by Gosling's performance because they've never seen something like it before to be quite amusing. May I show you to this tweet: |
It's time for another installment of "the man who only wears clothes from the J. Crew factory outlet and has no taste (but is gay!) gives his award show fashion take." Each time I look at Carey Mulligan in this dress I gasp at how perfect every single thing is, from the fit to the styling to the "this is the Oscars, dammit!" drama of it all. |
But it's Melissa McCarthy's cannoli purse that I'll be telling my children about. |
More From The Daily Beast's Obsessed | The Daily Beast's Obsessed was in Austin for the SXSW Film and TV Festival, and produced the most exciting, best written coverage in the biz. You should read all of it. Read more. Diane Warren knows she's a "pain in the ass." So I talked to her about it. Read more. If you're still reeling from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion finale, so are we. Read more. |
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Girls5eva: It's the new 30 Rock. High-fiving a million angels. (Now on Netflix) The Girls on the Bus: The CW-ification of Hillary Clinton politics is more endearing than it sounds. (Now on Max) 9-1-1: This show is out of its mind, and I couldn't love it more for that. (Thurs. on ABC)
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| Irish Wish: Lindsay Lohan, this ain't your pot of gold. (Now on Netflix) Manhunt: How do you make killing a president seem like a slog? (Now on Apple TV+) Love Lies Bleeding: A sexy, fascinating, thrillingly adventurous hot mess. (Now in theaters)
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