Gen X Suffers Mainstream Culture Constipation
In today’s overstuffed, mainstream culture of recycled “art”, nothing old moves and nothing new gets through. It’s enough to make a Gen-Xer pretty damn cranky.
Television
Features, reviews, interviews, and lists about television, covering the latest as well historical topics.
The Fashionable Shine of Morality in ‘Better Call Saul’
Better Call Saul’s costume design reveals a brilliant parallel between Chuck’s Mylar blanket, Jimmy’s bright metallic outfit, and the silver suits of the Salamancas, inviting the audience to question their own moral stance.
Love Story’s Subjection to the State
For all its couture fashion and bio-pic fluff, Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette is radical in how it echoes Laura Kipnis’ polemic, Against Love.
Beef’s Cooked-in Class Anxiety Turns Up the Heat
If Beef Season 1 gave you a tension headache that you refused to placate by turning off the television, Season 2 is even more addictively high-stakes, tightly wound, and explicit in its view.
‘Cheers’, Cosiness and the Illusion of Companionship
Cheers‘ characters float side-by-side as if suspended in a mug of amber-colored beer, going nowhere and befriending no one, least of all one another.
Why Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work” Is the Ultimate Screen Song
The lyrics to Steely Dan’s 1972 song “Dirty Work” are not the enigmatic stanzas that make up most of their discography, so why is it still used in films and TV to this day?
‘Drops of God’ Drinks Wine with a Proustian Sensibility
Drops of God chooses to speak the language of luxury through philosophy and meaningful cinematography – with drinks.
Star Trek’s Ultimate, Absolute, Inarguably Final Frontier
In the minds of Star Trek‘s many creators, the “sky” is the limit(less), but been there, done that. So what’s left for our adventurous mythmakers to explore?
What Is Wrong with ‘Bridgerton’?
In Brigerton‘s imagined world, racial inequality appears to be resolved simply through elite inclusion, without any reckoning with empire, exploitation, or power.
How MAGA Humor Took Over American Comedy
In the minds of MAGA humorists, they, not their risk-averse and PC-hobbled liberal counterparts, are continuing the tradition of bold, truth-telling comedy.
2025 Marks Pop Music’s Gilded Age
Embracing craft alongside vulnerability in the 2020s, pop music reaches the apex of its powers in 2025 by reveling in its own glamorous facade.
Dance Moms’ Ferocious Appetite
In the aftermath of the 2008 stock market crash, Dance Moms helped feed America’s ferocious appetite for cruelty.