It was a line so on the nose that I laughed out loud. In the pilot episode of HBO’s alternate history mini-series “The Plot Against America,” created by David Simon of the “The Wire” and based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name, there’s a moment when Herman Levin, the patriarch of a Jewish family in 1940’s Newark played by Morgan Spector, has a stark realization.A racist populist nationalist demagogue, Charles Lindbergh, like he might become the Republican nominee for president.“Win or lose, there’s a lot of hate out there,” Levin says. “And he knows how to tap into it.” If you didn’t get it yet, the line screams, this is a show about Trump. The line does not appear in the novel, of course. Because subtext has to be spelled out in our entertainment for us, it was squeezed into the show. HBO’s version of the “The Plot” is a culmination of a three-year miasma of dread about right-wing hate-mongering clumsily forced from the background of our media to the foreground. And it might be among the last cultural products whose specific task that was. We’re universally stricken with a new anxiety. And our entertainment is about to transition accordingly. Prepare for the saccharine.
Get your PJ’s on and gird yourself against the corny. Because things are about to get super sentimental. A Great Corniness is coming. When the pent-up longing for physical affection and in-person gatherings bursts into a flood of new live-action content production, a years-long theme will be how essential human support and human contact is and how important it is to remember that being close to together gives us life. Look, I get it. Those things are good. I’m going crazy in my apartment, too. But the specific and unavoidable corniness of streaming series and movies and talk shows made in the wake of social distancing will be its own new claustrophobia. We’ve all seen the first iteration of it, the hated “Imagine” video by Gal Gadot. A less offensively corny version was D-Nice’s live DJ set. But what’s really going to soak the fire of the Great Corniness with lighter fluid is the streaming ecosystem, its algorithm and Since its launch, titles like “Babies,” “Love Is Blind,” “The Circle,” and several heart-strings-pulling documentary series have gone viral and reached the top of this new trending list.
Imagine there’s no new content but new content about how much people need to touch each other. Now take the on the nose writing of "The Plot Against America,” spelling out the subtext for us, and extend it to content about that. Multiply that by Netflix's new role as the ultimate goal for viral stories, causing other streamers to chase. It’s a recipe for corniness on an unprecedented scale.
The shorter stuff
One good thing to come from this? Maybe waking up at 4:30am will no longer be the go-to business genius flex. Because no one will have to do that anymore, lol. (WSJ)
Speaking of Reese Witherspoon, her press strategy for that new show she made has been...intimidatingly strong. (VF)
If you want to know what your magazines will feel like now, read AirMail, which has had the uncanny feeling of being produced remotely since it launched. (AirMail)
Jason Zinoman claims Marc Maron predicted this crisis in his new Netflix special. (NYT)
And Norm MacDonald did a coronavirus-themed set on coke, allegedly. (Vulture)
Please be nice to Gal Gadot. Wonder Woman 1984 was supposed to come out in June. (NME)
Your media diet is your new status marker. (TNYer)
You have to wonder if Bob Iger knew this was coming. (NBC News)
Whenever I see an ad around town for this show I am baffled by the information on it. What is the name of the show? Which piece of copy is the tagline and which is the title? Is "Fort Salem" the name of this season? What is "Freeform?" (Image)
The Financial Times proves anything can be framed as a coronavirus story. (FT)
What's the worst part of this story about The Wing? No, not the candles budget. It's the 90s sitcom character naming convention for conference rooms. (NYTMag)
The first chapter of Lena Dunham's new "novel" reads like she spent less time on it than I did on this newsletter. Wonder if Vogue would publish me. (Vogue)
This season of "Curb" was flawless. (THR)
Werner Herzog was in Jack Reacher? (NYTMag)