EPISODE 807: I HEARD THAT YOU SETTLED DOWN
Also: Ariana DeBose Did The Thing.
Hi and welcome back to Pop Culture Spirit Wow. I got about halfway through last week’s episode when the internet where I was staying for the long weekend started getting super flaky and crazy-making and I gave up and binged Schitt’s Creek instead. Speaking of…
I AM THIS MANY EPISODES INTO SCHITT’S CREEK
Actually I’m done. But that scene…. Wow.
If you haven’t watched Schitt’s Creek, consider me now another one of your annoying friends who won’t stop telling you that you really need to.
THE WOW-ND DOWN (Now Sponsored by Chat GPT!)
So since we last met, Microsoft’s new AI search engine went insane (no, really), leading to so many more stories that I just can’t with about AI—although it hasn’t stopped me from writing some of my own, including one in which I asked an AI to write homilies for Ash Wednesday, and some of them were actually pretty good.
Meanwhile someone at my office said when he got off a plane one night last week he heard a kid saying he had a paper due by midnight but it was fine, “I’m just going to Chat GPT it.” So yeah, life is changing…
Elsewhere, Los Angeles is having crazy winter weather, while it’s been spring in New York pretty much since December; scientists have discovered that there’s a core inside the core at the center of the earth, which yes, is very what’s at the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop but is also kind of freaking me out because I thought of the center of the Earth was lava and dinosaurs; and in Hollywood last week’s big film about an ant has now been followed by a new big film about a bear that consumes a ton of cocaine and then goes crazy, which is based on a true story, insofar as there was in fact a bear who stumbled onto a mass of cocaine dumped from a plane and died after consuming it, and in no other way.
The trailer is um, pretty great.
MY SCARY ANIMAL PITCHES
After Cocaine Bear I don’t think there’s any way that we don’t see more crazed animal pitches coming out of Hollywood. So, let me just get my ideas out there early.
Meth Collie: This year, Lassie Comes Home, and EVERYBODY DIES.
Crank Kitty: Princess Wendy Might Have Been the Cutest Kitten at the Store, but Tonight She is Going to Become One !#%!ed Up Little Kitty.
Popper the Porpoise: Look Out Sea World. Flipper Just Got Dosed with a Shit Ton of Poppers.
Tarantulanche: For Decades, People in Los Angeles Have Been Fearing the Big One. They Were Worrying about the Wrong One.
Squirrelastrophe: They are in every town, every city across America, living amongst us, storing up, reproducing, waiting. UNTIL NOW.
THEY DON’T WANNA LIVE IN AMERICA
Last weekend the UK held the BAFTAs, which are the British version of the Oscars. American BAFTA and Oscar winner Ariana DeBose led off the proceedings with a three minute medley of songs, including a middle rap-ish section celebrating all of the women nominated, and it kind of sort of broke the internet because it was just so goofy and earnest.
Jason P. Frank at Vulture has a great piece on the whole thing that is well worth reading, thinking about what camp is and why we simultaneously shun it and love it.
The angle that most interested me, though, was UK award shows vs. American. The cutaways make it clear that the audience was VERY UNCOMFORTABLE long before the rap section. I don’t know who thought that having an enormously magnetic American celebrity come and open their show would be a thing that would really land with the often very buttoned-up Brits, but it absolutely did not.
I feel for DeBose; in every way she was just the person stuck in the middle on all of this. But I also appreciate the audience’s refusal to be forced into accepting a more American-style awards vibe. London is not LA, the BAFTAS are not the Oscars. In their own very polite way the Brits were giving the BAFTA producers the finger, and honestly I get that.
Watching them politely smile as the producers threw like, everything but the kitchen sink at them, I also found myself a little embarrassed about the way we Americans do these events. If Debose brought this performance to the Oscars—and I think she should, honestly—actors would be dancing in the aisles, like, immediately. Which is fine, I guess, but also has strong “This is what your mom and I do with our friends after too many wine coolers” energy. Sit down, Boomers, please.
I guess DeBose deleted her social media after the event because she was really getting bashed. And that sucks. She was just doing her job, and doing it well.
Also, she was celebrating women. Maybe that’s the real hot take here—Hey look, a talented woman gets harassed after she celebrates other women. I mean, Jesus Christ, you know?
AND THEN WE’LL BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN
I love a backstory. And I gotta say, after watching Thursday Grey’s Anatomy, in which Meredith Grey left the show after 19 years in the craziest of fashions, I am desperate to read the backstory on that episode.
Over the course of the last six episodes, Meredith’s oldest daughter Zola has been having panic attacks. It turns out she’s way too bright for her school, it’s coming out in unexpected ways and they have to find somewhere else for her to go. After looking around, Meredith found a place for her in Boston. So she has to move.
Meanwhile, her boyfriend Hank just moved from Minnesota to be with her, and took a job at her hospital, and now she’s leaving. Which is super weird; I’m assuming Scott Speedwell signed a contract and then Ellen Pompeo decided to leave? (More material for the oral history.)
By the way, Speedwell’s name on the show is not Hank, but I don’t know, to me he just has big Hank energy.
Tell me I’m wrong.
So, Meredith is leaving. And how do they do her final episode? Does she get some heartfelt moments with her sisters and her friend-tors Bailey and Richard? Does she say goodbye to the hospital in some way? Maybe we even get some kind of text or phone call with Christina?
Um, no. Her house catches fire; she loses her last patient; she stays at the reception for her for about 3 minutes, saying nothing; and, when Hank calls her to tell her he loves her as she sits on the plane, she listens, takes it all in and then says, “I can’t really hear you. I’ll call you when we get settled in.” Which, I mean…
It’s like the writers decided that the only way to farewell Meredith was to hit every single Meredith theme all at once: how her life has been touched by personal tragedies and professional ones that she’s worked through; how she’s grown from just a kid who slept with her resident to being a leader of her own; and how she’s an independent woman who doesn’t need a guy or love to define her life.
Which, note to self, does not work.
It’ll be interesting to see if the show can survive her departure. It is called Grey’s Anatomy, after all. They definitely set up the ending like a new beginning, with three young doctors moving into her old place, one of whom is a Shepard—because at this point to reveal yet another Grey sister or brother would be insane.
For now, let’s just dance it out.
GREATEST POP CULTURE PRESIDENTS
As I said, I got about half way done with last week’s ep when the entire universe turned against me and forced me to sit and watch TV all weekend with my friends. But one thing I had been working on for President’s Day was a list of the greatest pop culture presidents.
As it turns out, lots of websites have done this. But they’re all pretty much the same—a bunch of white dudes and, if you’re lucky, maybe one other person.
And it sort of brought me to a different place about the whole idea of pop culture presidents.
On the one hand, there’s this guy:
The West Wing is almost 25 years old now, but still, Martin Sheen is the guy that appears at the top of most pop culture president lists. And the other white dudes usually listed—Bill Pullman from Independence Day; Kevin Kline from Dave; Harrison Ford from Air Force One; Michael Douglas from The American President; John Sheridan from Babylon 5—along with the most frequently mentioned Black president, Morgan Freeman—all seem like attempts to idealize the president as some kind of a hero. Basically the President is the best possible version of your dad. Which is nice, I guess (although personally I think it’s ridiculous that anyone is still casting Morgan Freeman as anything at this point).
But it feels very old fashioned and unbelievable, too. I haven’t watched The West Wing in a long time, but I suspect if I did I would find it incredibly cringeworthy, with a sort of patronizing, Daddy Knows Best and Is Always Right quality.
Then there’s these ladies:
That’s Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica & Secretary General Chrisjen Avasarala from The Expanse, who each become leader of their governments. And the thing that’s striking about them both is that, unlike Jed Bartlett et all, they are constantly forced to make decisions where there is no morally righteous answer or safe position. They have to sacrifice people and many times also themselves. They don’t have the luxury of thinking of themselves as good.
It’s fascinating that our pop culture loves to take it so easy on its white men—it’s like our instinctive reaction to a male leader is still Don’t You Bother Him, Daddy Just Had a Hard Day of Work. Meanwhile women are just Doing the Work.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Tonight I was at Broadway Sings Adele. I am desperate to find you Tamika Lawrence’s performance, which was insane. For now, I’ll leave you with last year’s. Imagine her doing this, but with dreadlocks, and you’re close.
Have a great week.