Comedy/Drama ‘Somebody Somewhere’ Won’t Let Kansas Be the Joke
Set in America’s “flyover country”, HBO comedy/drama Somebody Somewhere, starring Bridget Everett, defies small-town America stereotyping.
Television
The Arrested Patriarch: Euphoria’s Cal Jacobs and Bad Education’s Frank Tassone
Euphoria’s Cal Jacobs and Bad Education’s Frank Tassone deliberately thwart redemption, lending a flair for the tragic to these otherwise villainous characters.
The Limits of Cultural Revisionism in Hulu’s ‘Pam & Tommy’
Mini-series Pam & Tommy seeks to bring depth and humanity to its oft-ridiculed titular leads. But it nonetheless revels in their mythology.
The Eternal Rome in Mobster Show ‘Suburra: Blood on Rome’
Italian mobster series Suburra exploits its Roman setting, using carefully composed shots and symbolically charged locations to suggest that nothing has changed in Rome since antiquity.
Tech-World Sexism Is the Main Character of Elizabeth Holmes Miniseries ‘The Dropout’
Hulu’s The Dropout, starring Amanda Seyfried as Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, puts gender at the center of the infamous Silicon Valley scam.
Marvel’s ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ Fails to Capitalize on a Strong Premise
Marvel’s Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+ follows the legacy of Captain America in the MCU, but its timely racially and politically charged plot lacks focus.
Ali Wong Is Reliably Riotous but Safe in ‘Ali Wong: Don Wong’
That delicious pompousness, often reserved for men in stand-up comedy, has been sharpened over the course of Ali Wong’s career.
Why ‘Jackass’ (Still) Works
Jackass was originally for early aughts audiences. Now 20 years and multiple blows to the head, heart, and extremities later, that moment has proven to be damn near immortal.
Is Animated Television on Par with the Best Programs?
Animated television shows The Simpsons, South Park, and BoJack Horseman, are often base in their approach to controversial subject matter, but “going low” might be the very thing that elevates them.
Chuck Klosterman’s ‘The Nineties’ Reads Like a Complex Murder Board
Chuck Klosterman’s The Nineties glosses subjects like Green Day, the Green Party, and Alan Greenspan like an insanely complex, cross-eyed inducing murder board.
Time Is Love in Italian Romance Comedy ‘Generation 56k’
Italian romance comedy Generation 56k toys with the timeline between instant and delayed gratification in the eras of the early internet and social media.
Did Improv Comedy Help Elevate America’s Consciousness?
Improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway? associated transgressive ideas about blackness and queerness with beloved personalities. While Americans laughed, did they learn anything?
