This Week in Pop Culture: June 7, 2024
Netflix's bizarre new limited series, a strange mix of books, and more in this week's pop culture round-up.
Happy Friday, friends. I hope that you survived the week and are looking forward to the weekend ahead. In an attempt to really buckle down on some writing projects (and not least of all because I owe a writing friend some pages in June), I decided to do Jamie Attenberg’s #1000WordsOfSummer. The basic idea is that you commit to writing (at least) 1,000 words every day between June 1 and June 14. I’m thrilled to say that so far, I’ve managed to accomplish this! I’m not saying any of the words are any good, but I have committed to setting aside time to working on writing outside of this newsletter.1
Happy Pride! I loved this fluff piece about Abbi Jacobson’s wedding to actor Jodi Balfour:
I’ve already gone on the record about being a reluctant Glen Powell stan since he won me over in Anyone But You, and I loved reading this profile of him in GQ UK this week:
He needed to figure out which version of himself Hollywood wanted. According to one agent, he was showing up too early – no, actually, too on time – for auditions. “He was like, ‘Hey man, you gotta be less punctual, like a little more cool actor-y,’” he says. Looking back, it seems absurd. “There’s definitely a bit of a game [to the whole thing]. It was clear to me very early on that it’s not a meritocracy, and I still believe that. I still believe that the best guy doesn’t necessarily get the job.” More often, he says, it comes down to a variety of factors outside of your control, like where you are in the pecking order of a certain type of actor, and which certain type of actor people are interested in at any given time. “You can’t just be good – you also have to be very lucky.”
I was also incredibly charmed by this quick little interview on The Drew Barrymore Show where he talks about watching My Best Friend’s Wedding with Dermot Mulroney, after Mulroney hadn’t seen it since it first premiered 25 years ago. It’s super cute, and Powell says really nice things about rom-coms, which I love:
In completely opposite news (in that no one wants this and it’s so supremely gross I barely have words to describe it), TLC is has apparently greenlit a reality show starring Alec Baldwin and his American wife Hillary2 with their seven children.3 Besides the fact that it’s perplexing to think about a single human being who wants this, the entire thing feels very gross given Baldwin’s ongoing legal troubles4 and the fact that these two people seem to be, by all accounts, completely insufferable out-of-touch monsters. I feel for the children who are definitely being exploited here and am literally hoping and praying for a swift cancellation:5
This is, how you say, gross! (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself).
Before we get into the rest of the pop culture that took up space in my brain this week, a shitpost about Challengers being available to stream on MGM+6 that made me spit out my drink:
What I Read:
I Want You More by Swan Huntley: When Zara accepts a ghostwriting job for celebrity chef Jane Bailey, she ends up staying in Jane’s home in the Hamptons for the summer. As they collaborate, they grow closer, and Zara, in search of an identity, starts adopting Jane’s mannerisms, as well as wearing her clothes. As the lines between them blur, Zara also sees that Jane might be different when the cameras aren’t rolling, and that Jane might not have been completely truthful about the events of her life that have shaped her.
This was one of my most-anticipated books of summer, and I found it extremely readable - I finished it in just a few sittings - but I don’t think that it quite stuck the landing. The premise was great, and I loved how Huntley created an increasing sense of claustrophobia as Zara becomes more and more enmeshed in Jane’s life, but a lot of the rest of the book felt very familiar in that I’d seen it all done before in thrillers. I also didn’t love the ending: it tries to throw an ambiguous twist in the literal last page or so, and it felt cheap to me. Still, a perfectly serviceable book for the beach or the pool this summer!
Erasure by Percival Everett: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison has always eschewed the idea that race defines his identity as a person or as a writer. But as a Black writer, he finds himself incensed and offended by the success of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, a debut novel by a middle-class Black woman who once “visited some relatives in Harlem.” When the book is championed as an authentic representation of the African American experience, he’s incensed. His personal life is also falling apart, and searching for a distraction, Monk writes a parody of the genre he hates so much and his horrified when it is welcomed into the zeitgeist as an authentic voice of Black America. As the demand for the book’s author rises, Monk must reckon with the problem he’s created for himself.
I listened to Everett’s 2001 book on audio this week and couldn’t help comparing it to American Fiction, last year’s movie that was adapted from the novel. The audio is great: the character of Monk is fully realizing and compelling as he narrates his life and thoughts about what is happening in the publishing world and in his personal life. But the book makes the strange choice of inserting Monk’s entire fictional novel in the middle of the book, which I really struggled with, as I would have preferred a few short excerpts. I didn’t need the entirety - I got the point he was making without the whole thing being dropped into the narrative. I also found myself appreciating how brilliantly American Fiction adapted this material for its screenplay, and it made me want to watch the movie again. I’m glad I read this, but I did not love it.
Twisted Love by Ana Huang: Alex Volkov is brilliant and gorgeous and rich, but has a heart of ice. When he agrees to keep an eye on his best friend’s sister, he tries to resist the way she makes him feel, but Ava Chen is a force unlike anything he’s ever encountered. While Alex is set on revenging an event from his past, Ava can’t remember her own. As the two fall for one another, they realize they might destroy their worlds in the process.
Will I ever learn that books that go viral on TikTok are not, generally speaking, for me? I listened to the audiobook this week on my walks with the dog, and I scared her more than once by bursting out laughing at how bad - and utterly ridiculous - this book was. I knew going in that this would be hard for me to get on board with - a genius IQ alpha male who is also super rich is guaranteed to give me the immediate ick - and yet I was like, “Maybe this will be bad in a fun way?” Friends, it was not! The writing isn’t good (Ava talks about her body heating up whenever Alex touches her so much that I wondered if she was literally being barbecued, and there’s this bizarre and totally unnecessary attempted murder subplot that had me fully HOWLING. I didn’t find it sexy at all! Both characters are so underbaked, wildly boring, and there’s about three pounds of plot in a ten-pound bag, and yet somehow the book felt like it went on for an eternity! This sums it up:7
I do not recommend this and will not be picking up any of the rest of the books in the series. A skip!
What I Watched:
Eric (Limited Series, Netflix): When his son goes missing on the way to school a puppeteer for a popular children’s show clings to his son’s drawings of a monster puppet named Eric. He becomes convinced that by bringing Eric to life on TV, he will get his son home safely.
My husband and I watched this entire limited series this week (it’s only 6 episodes), and while I think we both liked it, I also found myself increasingly frustrated by the choices the story made. While the performances here are good to great (Cumberbatch is doing what he can with a role that isn’t as interesting or compelling as the show thinks it is), I found that the gimmick of the character of Eric wore thin almost as soon as it was introduced. It also doesn’t gel very well with the series’s other storyline, following a detective named Ledroit (played by an absolutely incredible McKinley Belcher III) who is investigating pedophile rings and missing children in the neighborhood. We keep flipping between almost cartoonish sequences where Cumberbatch’s character gulps vodka in the middle of the day and then dances with a puppet that looks a lot like a character from Monsters Inc. and extremely dark and upsetting scenes in a nightclub where closeted men threaten each other with violence. It’s…uneven, to say the least. I found myself unsure what the show was actually trying to do, or what point it was trying to make. The series finale left me with more questions than answers - I think it was trying to make a point about race and class and how the outcomes are often different if you’re white - but I don’t think it was very successful, honestly! I wonder if audiences will forget about this limited series by the time awards season arrives.
Girls5eva (Netflix): A girl group from the early 2000s decides to reunite twenty years later after their one-hit wonder single goes viral again after a rapper samples it.
I’m extremely late to the party on this one, but better late than never, right? I watched the first episode when this show premiered on Peacock a few years ago but didn’t stick with it. Now that Netflix has the rights and released a third season, I decided to give it another try. I’m so glad I did, because this show has JOKES! The joke density is so good (I haven’t seen something this consistently funny in years) and the cast is excellent. I’m still only in the first season (TV watching is still down for me as I spend more time reading and doing other things), but I highly recommend this one if you’ve been thinking about giving it a try.
What I Listened To:
Noah Kahan: We are going to see Noah Kahan in concert this weekend,8 and as a result, I’ve been spending a lot of time this week listening to this playlist, which covers most of the songs he’s playing as part of the We’ll All Be Here Forever tour. I’m familiar with a lot of his music but wanted to make sure I knew what we’d be getting when we see him - I’m not much of a live music girlie and the more familiar I am with the music, the better the time I have. His music is great - and I’ve heard excellent things about his live shows, so I’m very excited, even though he doesn’t go on until after 9pm, and that is past my bedtime.9
I’ve been really into listening to “False Confidence,” a song from Busyhead that I hadn’t spent a lot of time with before (and the music video confirms how to pronounce his last name, which I found extremely funny):
And then I fell down a rabbit hole because comments on the video kept mentioning a choreographed dance by “Sean and Kaylee,” and so I had to find that. The dance is incredible (and has 50 million views) and was so much fun to watch:
Bedtime Riot, “Something About It”: My cousin Mori released her fourth (and this year’s final) single this week and it’s a sad bop that I immediately put on my heavy rotation playlist. Mori describes the song as an ode to “queer longing”10 and you should definitely check out:
Sabrina Carpenter, “Please Please Please”: I’m not fully on board the Sabrina Carpenter train, even though “I’m working late/because I’m a singer”11 has been in my head for literal weeks, but this Bonnie and Clyde style video with her real-life boyfriend Barry Keoghan is pretty fun, and the song has a country twang to it that I kind of like:
Ariana Grande, “the boy is mine”: Grande’s latest album hasn’t gotten a ton of play from me, though I did give it a few solid listens when it was first released. I was mostly struck by how much she’s benefitted from the vocal lessons as part of her role in Wicked and how unapologetic she is about her relationship with her costar Ethan Slater, who was married with a brand-new baby when news broke that they were maybe seeing one another. But there’s no denying that “the boy is mine” is a fun song, and the video, released this week is instantly iconic as it features Brandy and Monica12 as news reporters and Penn Padgley as the city’s mayor.
What I’m Looking Forward To:
Land of Women (Apple TV+, June 26): When her husband fails to repay a lot of money to the wrong people, Gala’s life is turned upside down, especially after her husband vanishes. Gala leaves New York with her mother and teenage daughter and flees to Spain in an attempt to start a new life. I’m lukewarm on Eva Longoria, but this looks fun enough and I feel like pickings are very slim this summer:
Alien: Romulus (Theaters, August 16): When a group of space colonizers try to scavenge an abandoned space station, they end up coming face to face with the most terrifying life form in the entire universe. The movie is being hailed as a return to the franchise’s original movies,13 and it looks deeply terrifying (and boasts a great Gen Z cast, including Isabella Merced and Cailee Spaeny:
That’s it for this week! I’ll be back next week with more buzzy summer books (one of them is being hailed as this year’s The Guest, and I’m not seeing it so far!), thoughts on Hulu’s Queenie, preliminary thoughts on Normani’s new album (assuming that she does indeed drop it when she’s supposed to), and so much more. Have a great weekend and thanks, as always, for reading!
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Writing this newsletter absolutely counts as writing, and I’d say I spend anywhere between 5-10 hours a week working on it, but I wanted to focus on my fiction for this craft challenge.
If you know, you know.
They have seven children together. As you might know, Baldwin has an adult daughter named Ireland with ex Kim Basinger.
This is also likely why Baldwin would ever agree to something like this, to be completely honest! Those legal bills must be expensive.
If we had the technology to yeet this man into the sun, I would help fund it!
Whomst? What? Huh?
This is my real review on Goodreads! I used to use a fake name on the internet so my students couldn’t find me and I never changed it, and now I just think it’s funny.
This is likely my one concert of the year. I was thisclose to buying Maggie Rogers tickets for October, but it’s the night I’m supposed to return from presenting at a professional conference out of town, and I know I’ll be exhausted.
Look, I try to get up between 5-5:30, and that means committing to an early bedtime. I’ve always been a morning person, and I’m ok with it.
Perfect for pride month or any time, really!
I saw a TikTok change the line to “because I’m a pinworm” and it makes me laugh every time I sing it. I don’t know why! It’s been a long week!
Never forget that this duo had a song called “The Boy is Mine” first - and it’s better.
A distinction from the controversial and divisive Prometheus, a movie that I found utterly perplexing, and I wasn’t the only one (I think about this video way more than I should for something that came out over a decade ago):
HOW DID I NOT KNOW JODI BALFOUR WAS MARRYING ABBI JACOBSON?? How awesome!
Omigod that dance—False Confidence!!! So glad I went back a week, Mads! And kudos to Mori.