| Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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Legends Don't Get Much More Legendary |
The longer the tease, the more alive I felt. I've watched all the videos. Sometimes it seemed like the tease went on forever. I loved it. There are countless performances of Tina Turner singing "The Best" on YouTube: award shows, her own concerts, the iconic Divas 99 performance. In that last one, the thumping introductory bass line edged us for a full minute, as The Legs strutted from a limo, through the theater lobby and audience, and then to center stage. If there was anything that Tina Turner knew, it was to take your time with it—first, nice and easy; then, nice and rough. The good things take time. And they're worth the wait. |
I don't know how to eulogize Tina Turner, because it's impossible to distill an artist, a force, and inspiration so great they—to us—transcend humanity and become ethereal. A deity, who we had the good fortune to worship down here on earth. And I'm just the smallest fragment of a person who was changed by her life, talent, and story. She was, for me, the music star; I can't even imagine how that connection reverberated even deeper for the marginalized, the wounded, the survivors, and the triumphant—those who saw themselves in parts of her life journey. But I can speak to how I would watch her performances—constantly—and how they changed me. Specifically, I can talk about how they made me feel. Not in the terms of, "What did that feel like?" But the verb. Tina made me feel. Like many an elder gay millennial—I'm popping a Pepcid as I write this—Tina was always around me, because…Tina was always around. Everyone in my life played her music all the time. Her "What's Love Got to Do With It" comeback had already happened by the time I was old enough to be aware of pop culture; she was touring the world, and it was just common knowledge that Tina was the greatest. Then I saw her on Oprah. (Some kids watched Power Rangers after school. I watched The Oprah Winfrey Show.) At first, I thought her appearance was going to be like seeing two supernovas colliding. Instead, I was educated. Even Oprah bowed at her presence. This was someone whose halo was so bright that the most famous person in the world, to me, melted under it. When she was on that show, it's not that I saw her in a new light. The Tina of it all clicked into a place that's now in my bones, my heart, my soul—that place that everyone has been talking about in the days since Turner passed; we all know it. There's not a time (of the perhaps thousands of times) that I have watched a performance of Turner's and not felt something electrifying. That I've been activated, in some way. The more I learned about her biography, the more that kinetic energy I felt became emotional energy. Watching her on stage transformed me. There was no live performer like her, because no one else could be that wanton and unbridled, but also harness that spirit into something so specific and grounded that all of us related. Now, when I think back to all the times I've pulled up that "Tina Turner: One Last Time" concert at Wembley Stadium to watch, I realize what it is we all might have been experiencing through her performance. |
It wasn't just a wall of sound coming at us. It was a tornado of power, athleticism, sensuality, resilience, and experience—a storm that brews from the depth of a person who has lived, and is now expelling that past through her voice and movement. I often think of pop culture as a form of therapy. It mandates that we consider things, that we work through our own issues because it confronts us with truths. It also allows us to retreat into distraction when we need it. Tina, for me, offered both. What if every feeling—every joy, heartbreak, anger, moment of pride, insecurity, and defiance—could explode out of us, launching out of our limbs, our hair, our kicking legs, and our swiveling hips, like rockets? When the threat of coping with everything life saddles us with threatens to flatten us, what an amazing catharsis it could be to just detonate it all, to have it all erupt from us with all the unapologetic flash and bombast of a fireworks show? What would it feel like, to feel that…free? I'm not sure if Tina Turner ever truly felt that way. But the forcefulness of her stage presence, of her unmatched vim and vigor, gave us, at the very least, the fantasy of that catharsis. And in the throes of her power for the duration of her performance, she gave us that healing form of escapism. |
But the point of her music, the point of Turner's legacy—in many ways—is that you can't escape. The reality was very much the point. As my colleague Helen Holmes wrote, Tina Turner never pretended her story had a happy ending. "It wasn't a good life," Turner said in a documentary. "The good did not balance the bad. I had an abusive life, there's no other way to tell the story. It's a reality. It's a truth. That's what you've got, so you have to accept it." That acceptance is the thing. And feeling that is part of the journey. Maybe, if you're Tina Turner, you can work that out as the greatest live performer there's ever been on stage. Or, if you're me, you can give a standing ovation to your laptop screen, as one of her performances plays on YouTube, and start building the path toward vigorously unleashing all of your own baggage, as her performances have come to represent. "I call you when I need you, my heart's on fire," she finally sings, after that gloriously endless intro to "The Best." Remember that? Being so excited about things that we were all ablaze about possibility, not extinguished from the reality of life—concerned, cynical, resigned. Especially now, it's prudent to feel the way that Tina taught us. "Take my heart and make it strong, baby." |
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Good for You, Melissa McCarthy |
After seeing The Little Mermaid, the ambitious new take on the beloved 1989 animated classic, I have come to an irrefutable conclusion: The best live-action Disney reboot is…still Aladdin. (I am right, and I will not apologize for saying it.) There are definitely elements of The Little Mermaid that surpassed my admittedly low expectations, and there are others that are about as dismal as I expected. Halle Bailey is as sensational as you've heard as Ariel, and Daveed Diggs' voice work as Sebastian is a comedic tour de force. It's a shame that Sebastian, as well as Jacob Tremblay's Flounder and Awkwafina's Scuttle—all meant to be photorealistic but just not quite real-looking enough—more resemble those traumatizing Chuck E. Cheese animatronics than any sort of CGI triumph. It's especially bad when they're talking, with their mouths basically just flapping open and shut. And the scenes of Ariel on land were unexpectedly moving and gorgeously shot, while everything under the sea was a dour drab—not great when the movie is, uh, The Little Mermaid. |
For all the controversy over casting (so much uproar over a Black Ariel, but not a peep about the blasphemous decision to make Prince Eric British), the movie was admirably diverse, by Hollywood's poor standards. So what surprised me is that it's the most obvious and boring casting decision—Melissa McCarthy as Ursula—that most blew me away. There didn't seem to be anything inventive in casting McCarthy. In fact, it came off as lazy to choose the industry's most famous, bankable plus-sized actress over a more creative choice; it elicited a shrugging of course. But she is deliciously good in the film, subverting expectations (at least mine) for what you'd think Melissa McCarthy-as-Ursula would be like. McCarthy modulates her voice down a register, eschewing over-the-top, villainous histrionics for something more sinister—which, in turn, allows for Ursula's cheekiness and campier moments to be even more twistedly funny. Her Ursula is a clear and necessary homage to original voice actress Pat Carroll, but it's also original enough so that it's not a pale imitation. And, of course, it's a performance in tribute and respect to Divine, the legendary drag queen who inspired the Ursula character in the first place. |
McCarthy's press tour for the film has been flawless and thrilling to me, especially, because of her insistence on speaking about Divine, Varla, and the countless drag queens that made "Poor Unfortunate Souls" a staple of their acts. You can tell that history is personal to McCarthy, which is evident in her performance.
And while Divine's inspiration for Ursula is well-known to a contingent of Disney fans, and certainly to the LGBT community, that McCarthy has been adamant about publicizing it and making it common knowledge now is unmistakably important. At a time when drag and LGBT pride are at the center of an outrageous and shameful culture war, she's ensuring that all the families seeing the movie this weekend are aware that they are celebrating the art and community of drag.
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The Marvelous Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Finale |
After this weekend, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Succession, and Barry will be over for good—and a few days later, depending on what Apple TV+ decides to do, Ted Lasso may be as well. (Season finales for Yellowjackets and Somebody Somewhere are also airing this weekend, with the former, at least, guaranteed to return, and the latter's renewal hopefully coming—if there is such a thing as a God.) The TV programmers really said, "Have a lovely long weekend, America! Except for you, TV journalists. Don't even think about making plans." In these past few years, a slew of pivotal, era-defining series have ended. It makes for a strange moment—for the industry, but also for me, a person who writes about TV and how it relates to him. I'm not sure yet what this moment means…but it means something! |
I do think that Mrs. Maisel really stuck the landing. I found its finale episode to be spectacular, with the perfect amount of fan service, while still doing justice to character arcs. (Plus, there was a random scene in which Broadway star Leslie Kritzer cameos as Carol Burnett singing "Shy" from Once Upon a Mattress, which I like to think was added to the episode just for me.) And while I often find quoting the title within a project to be hokey, there is a moment when Midge is called "the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" for the first time, and I did cry. Moreover, the series ended with a scene of laughter, which I won't spoil—but know that it just felt right. Tits up! |
The Barbie Bonanza Is Just Getting Started |
A new Barbie trailer came out this week, this one with actual details of the plot. Gauging by the overwhelming reaction on social media, it previews what will be a cinematic masterpiece unlike the human race has ever experienced before. (Personally, it made me more skeptical of it possibly meeting high expectations. But, like Prince Harry, I can't afford my own security detail, so I will not be elaborating any further, for fear of the internet mob.) There are, however, two moments from the trailer that have gone viral, and which I am obsessed with. This line that Barbie blurts in the middle of a group dance routine, is endlessly relatable. |
And this isn't just Ryan Gosling being epically hot as Ken, but it also raises an important question: How tall does this screengrab suggest Ken/Gosling is?!?! |
A TikTok user named @throatgoatnancyreagan attended a recent concert of Taylor Swift's Eras tour and posted a video montage of himself eating a new hot dog each time Swift transitioned to a new "era" of her career on her setlist. |
Have you ever had the feeling you've just met your soulmate? (Watch here.) |
More From The Daily Beast's Obsessed |
This is the best deep-dive I've read into why everyone hates Vanderpump Rules star Raquel Leviss, a participant in the infamous #Scandoval, so damn much. Read more. The new Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game sets a new high bar for video-game excellence, and apparently has been monopolizing all of my colleague's time. Read more. Ahead of the Succession finale this weekend, read this excellent take on the Kendall Roy characters, and why he's doomed to commit the same sins of his father. Read more. |
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