What comes after prestige? For the most elite entertainment brands and the most elite political brands, the answer is happily converging. It’s a form of post-elite acclaim and brand-building that merges Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Washington’s best practices into a more mutually beneficial option than governing: super-prestige TV. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, of course, ditched the Royal family last week, and the popular take was that they’d be capitalizing on an opportunity to become full-time influencers. But for a hint of what Harry and Meghan’s post-Royal Family life may look like, the Obamas are a better comparison than the Kardashians. On Monday, it was announced that the Obamas are officially nominated for their first Oscar. That means the Obamas will be at the Academy Awards. That means Obamas Red Carpet interviews, Obamas crowd reaction shots, Obamas jokes and toasts from the stage, and that means a gigantic Obamas-sized lift for public sentiment toward Netflix.
Among the goods and services covered by the trademark Harry and Meghan submitted fo their brand Sussex Royal are "arranging and conducting of entertainment events for charitable purposes" and "news reporting."But last year Prince Harry had already singed on to executive produce a series about mental health with Oprah for Apple TV+ and one of the first things Meghan Markle announced post-Megxit was an overall deal she signed with Disney for voiceover acting, a deal that's rumored to be have been in the works for about as long. Transforming your brand into a production company that makes streaming content with a liberal, coastal conscience is not only easier than running an empire, it's also much more fun, lucrative and ego-boosting. Anyone can get elected president or prime minister. But not everyone can hang out with Tim Cook and Leo and Bob Iger and Beyoncé. Once you've got a Nobel Prize, or are literally a prince, what is there left to do that will not only make you feel like you're making a difference int he world but give you the caliber of glory that should go with it?
Similarly, once you've got the iPhone or more Oscar nominations than the hundred-year-old Hollywood studios in only a couple years of effort, what is there left make that will impress and stand out? For the streamers, glazing non-scripted content with the glow of super-prestige brands lifts not only the content itself out of the morass of titles but also lifts the perceived importance of the entire company. Netflix as the platform for the Obamas' post-presidency work means Netflix as the supra-national arbiter of the direction of policy and advocacy, above not just other streamers but way above Washington in importance. There are lots of entertainment brands that make prestige content. Those entertainment brands now need super-prestige content to stand out. As for the very few people like Harry and Meghan, who own those super-prestige brands, the move is obvious. The physical halls of power don't really hold any power anymore. Power moved with us to screens. This power comes with very lucrative deals, the righteousness of public service and a much better looking group of peers.
The shorter stuff
If Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio on Marc Maron's podcast had been 4 hours long I would've listened to the whole thing gladly. (WTFPod)
Avatar 2 has "very powerful PC game from 2002' aura." Yikes! (Twitter)
Shocked that "The Circle" hasn't driven more conversation yet. (Vulture)
Mel Brooks is producing that bizarre annual live musical thing ABC does. Sure! (EW)
"Schitt's Creek" is a sneaky addition to the elite ranks of millennial comfort sitcoms alongside "The Office," "Friends" and "Parks and Recreation." (NYT)
The content centipede is digesting things even faster: Parasite, a movie from this year, will be turned into a series. (THR)
I love stories like the one in William Gibson's "By The Book" about finding like minded friends simply through mentioning the author J.G. Ballard. (NYT)
We are quietly getting a new show by the genius Armando Ianucci for HBO. If you've never seen "The Thick of It," you should do that now. (AirMail)
The poster for Netflix's new Aaron Hernandez documentary is...hard to take seriously. The photoshop job reminds me of a mid-2000s mixtape cover. (IMDb)
"Rock-influenced" is no one's preferred adjective to describe the forthcoming Kendrick Lamar album, right? (NME)
Studios really need AI to greenlight all this content for them? It really is crazy out there. (THR)
All of Larry David's clothes in this GQ cover profile are his own. That is a fucking goal! (GQ)
The only thing here cooler than Robert Caro is the hyphen in the New-York Historical Society's name. (NYT)
If you've ever read a review on AllMusic.com, then you've probably come across the name Stephen Thomas Erlewine. Erlewine, a familiar presence in my life for so long, wrote my favorite essay on Rush drummer Neil Peart. It's the only one that's not actually a sentimental self-profile about how the author was a nerd in high school. (Substack)