The Bluestocking, vol 43: Hollywood, populists and Noel's DVD commentary
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into your inbox - I'm here again! a glitzy selection of links this time, because escapism is sorely needed.
Helen
Hollywood As We Know It Is Over
But the real threat isn’t China. It’s Silicon Valley. Hollywood, in its over-reliance on franchises, has ceded the vast majority of the more stimulating content to premium networks and over-the-top services such as HBO and Showtime, and, increasingly, digital-native platforms such as Netflix and Amazon. These companies also have access to analytics tools that Hollywood could never fathom, and an allergy to its inefficiency.
Interesting piece on the disruption coming to Hollywood, although I think it takes a bit of a "homo economicus" approach to what people want, ie assumes that they will make rational decisions, not ones informed by identity or culture. For example - yes, you can get rid of the expense of "date night" by watching a movie at home, but if you're 15, being not at home is rather the point. And it feels to me like theatre (in London, at least) is as good as it's ever been, because people will still pay for experiences which only a limited number of people can have, like seeing Benedict Cumberbatch play Hamlet. It's partly conspicuous consumption, and partly that rarity adds value to anything.
An Oral History of Girls
I remember begging Adam to even come in. It's funny because for two or three years before Girls, I had brought Adam Driver in for everything. Even things that weren't right — comedies like Cop Out or the T.J. Miller part in the Yogi Bear movie — because I just wanted him to be seen. He was that talented. But he never got anything because he's not conventionally handsome. Then [after the second season] I saw his Gap model campaign and was like, "Are you f—ing kidding me? I couldn't get him arrested before Girls."
I enjoyed reading this, despite having watched very little of Girls.
Populists cannot win on their own
Mr Farage did not bring about the Brexit vote all by himself. He needed two mainstream Conservative politicians, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. More important still, the Leave vote was not just the result of spontaneous anti-establishment feelings by the downtrodden; Euroscepticism, once a fringe position among Conservatives, had been nourished for decades by tabloid newspapers and rebel MPs.
Really smart piece on how "far right populists" are often boosted by the respectable centre-right for their own purposes.
In Damien Chazelle's world, men play and women admire
In light of Chazelle’s earlier films, this is not surprising. He is particularly attached to scenes in which men teach women how to play musical instruments, explain music to them, or play music for them: Guy (Jason Palmer) teaches his mother to play the piano and Madeline (Desiree Garcia) gets a lesson from a male drummer; Guy plays for both his girlfriend Madeline and Elena (Sandha Khin), the girl that he leaves her for; later, Madeline dates another older musician. Andrew rattles off information about the music playing in the pizza to his girlfriend, Nicole (Melissa Benoist). Sebastian, of course, plays for Mia and teaches her to appreciate jazz. Music, then, effectively serves as both an emotional conduit and a subtle affirmation of power: where Fletcher uses his status as Andrew’s teacher as a cudgel to assert his dominance, Guy and Sebastian — and, indeed, Andrew — maintain their status as the more worldly, dominant partner in a subtler way, through the assertion of their artistic skill and cultural knowledge.
I didn't love La La Land, and this piece does a good job of explaining why.
How a fractured women's movement became the opposition to Trump
Clinton has always been a wary avatar of feminism. In 2008, she didn’t run for president as a “women’s candidate”; if anything, she campaigned with her sex in the closet and the strategist Mark Penn advising her to harden her image into an American Iron Lady. “They do not want someone who would be the first mama,” he wrote in one memo. Years later, HBO’s “Veep” would satirize that posture through its own fictional politician. “I can’t identify myself as a woman!” she tells her staff. “People can’t know that. Men hate that. And women who hate women hate that, which I believe is most women.”
This piece is both a great primer on various Feminist Wars of the last five years, and an account of how women became the first Marchers against Trump.
Links: a BUMPER EDITION
This Danish advert will make you cry.
How the New York Times is clawing its way into the digital future.
I had never heard of Kobayashi Kiyochika, but his paintings of industrialising Japan are incredible.
"Look at me, what a twat": Noel Gallagher's DVD commentary on Oasis videos is guaranteed to cheer you up.
A biographer of Hitler finally gives in to the temptation to write about Donald Trump.
Guest artist: Will McPhail is a brilliant cartoonist. Check out his work and maybe buy a print (I have).
That's all, folks!