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    Brayden Smith, Five-Time ‘Jeopardy!’ Champion, Dies at 24

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBrayden Smith, Five-Time ‘Jeopardy!’ Champion, Dies at 24The five-time “Jeopardy!” champion Brayden Smith died unexpectedly at 24, his mother said on Twitter on Friday.Credit…Jeopardy!Feb. 13, 2021, 5:44 p.m. ETBrayden Smith, a voracious reader and former captain of his high school quiz bowl team who became a five-time “Jeopardy!” champion on some of the last shows hosted by Alex Trebek, died on Feb. 5 in Las Vegas. He was 24.Mr. Smith’s death was confirmed in an online obituary. It did not list a cause of death. His mother, Deborah Smith, said on Twitter that her son had died “unexpectedly.”Mr. Smith, she said, had achieved a lifelong dream by winning “Jeopardy!” as a contestant on some of the final shows hosted by Mr. Trebek before Mr. Trebek died in November at age 80 after a battle with cancer.Over six shows, Mr. Smith won five times, earning $115,798 and the nickname Alex’s Last Great Champion, the obituary said. Mr. Smith said he had been looking forward to competing on the show’s Tournament of Champions against his “trivia idols.”“‘Jeopardy!’ is so much better than anything that I could have even imagined,” Mr. Smith said in a video released by “Jeopardy!” last month. “Every moment since I last was on the studio lot has been a moment that I’ve been wanting to get back on there.”Mr. Smith said on the video that he had been moved by Mr. Trebek’s perseverance on the show since Mr. Trebek’s announcement in March 2019 that he had learned he had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.“Now everybody knows that he is ailing, and to put on a brave face and go out there every day and continue to give America and the world some good cheer, especially this year, was really a testament to how great of a person he was,” Mr. Smith said.Mr. Trebek was clearly impressed with Mr. Smith’s knowledge of trivia, telling the other contestants after one of Mr. Smith’s wins that they had played well, but “you ran into Billy Buzz Saw — and he took no prisoners.”Brayden Andrew Smith was born in Henderson, Nev., on Sept. 6, 1996, the second of four sons of Scott and Deborah (Rudy) Smith.At Liberty High School in Henderson, he was a National Merit Scholar semifinalist and led the Quiz Bowl team to back-to-back state runner-up finishes. For his outstanding play, he earned a college scholarship.He graduated last year from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with a degree in economics and had planned to become a lawyer in the federal government. He had recently served as an intern at the Cato Institute in Washington, researching criminal justice reform.“The JEOPARDY! family is heartbroken by the tragic loss of Brayden Smith,” the show said on Twitter. “He was kind, funny and absolutely brilliant.”Jack Begg contributed research.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    ‘Sorry, Britney’: Media Is Criticized for Past Coverage, and Some Own Up

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s Estate‘We’re Sorry, Britney’Justin Timberlake ApologizesWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Sorry, Britney’: Media Is Criticized for Past Coverage, and Some Own UpConversations about the relentless focus on the pop star’s mental health, mothering and sexuality have begun anew following The New York Times documentary “Framing Britney Spears.”Media outlets and fans are re-examining how Britney Spears was questioned and written about during the years leading up to her personal crises.Credit…Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 12, 2021Updated 1:50 p.m. ET“Help Me,” the cover of Us Weekly blared in all caps, below a photo of Britney Spears with her hair partly buzzed off. People Magazine promised to take readers “Inside Britney’s Breakdown,” teasing details of “wild partying, sobbing in public, shaving her head.” OK! Weekly tempted potential buyers with a firsthand account of an “emotional cry for help.”In 2007, the celebrity magazines stacked up in dentists’ waiting rooms or on the racks by supermarket checkout lines had a favorite cover story: the trials and tribulations of a 25-year-old Britney Spears. That breathless, wall-to-wall coverage of her travails by glossy magazines, supermarket tabloids, mainstream newspapers and television shows alike is now being re-examined in the wake of a new documentary about Spears and her troubles by The New York Times.Fourteen years after Spears’s most publicized crises, some see the hypercritical fixation on her mental health, mothering and sexuality as a broad public failing.“We’re sorry, Britney,” read a post on Glamour’s Instagram this week. “We are all to blame for what happened to Britney Spears.”Spears was a frequent cover star on celebrity weeklies in the mid-2000s.The tabloids had been obsessed with Spears since her days as a teenage bubble-gum pop sensation, but the coverage reached a new level of intensity during her mid-20s. There seemed to be a vicious cycle at play: The relentless paparazzi that followed Spears nearly everywhere left her exasperated and helped fuel public displays of frustration, which magazines then covered aggressively, interviewing a host of tangential characters, including the owner of the hair salon where she shaved her head and a psychologist who had never treated her.“Her story hit at a time when print magazines were hunting for the story of the week,” said Jen Peros, a former Us Weekly editor, “and when you found a celebrity — I hate to say it — spiraling or acting abnormally, that was the story. And we knew it would sell magazines.”A new episode of The New York Times Presents, on FX and Hulu, coming Friday, Feb. 5, at 10 p.m.CreditCredit…Ting-Li Wang/The New York TimesSome are now asking for direct apologies from people who made jokes at Spears’s expense or interviewed her in ways now viewed as insensitive, sexist or simply unfair. On social media, there have been calls for apologies from prominent media figures, including Diane Sawyer, who, in a 2003 interview grilled Spears on what she might have done to upset her ex, Justin Timberlake; Matt Lauer, who pointed to questions about whether she was a “bad mom”; and the comedian Sarah Silverman, who made off-color jokes about Spears at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.These demands are encapsulated in another phrase spreading on social media: “Apologize to Britney.”Silverman, who had joked on MTV that Spears’s children were “the most adorable mistakes,” did just that on an episode of her podcast that was released on Thursday, saying that, at the time, she had not understood that big-time celebrities could have their feelings hurt.“Britney, I am so sorry. I feel terribly if I hurt you,” Silverman said. “I could say I was just doing my job but that feels very Nuremberg Trial-y, and I am responsible for what comes out of my mouth.”And on Friday Timberlake issued an apology to Spears on Instagram, writing that he was “deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right.” (He also apologized to Janet Jackson, with whom he appeared in 2004 at the Super Bowl halftime show.) The new documentary, “Framing Britney Spears,” which premiered on Hulu and FX last Friday, traces the origins of Spears’s conservatorship, the legal arrangement that has mandated that other individuals — primarily her father — have had control over her personal life and finances for the past 13 years, following her 2008 hospitalization after a three-hour standoff involving her two toddler sons and her ex-husband Kevin Federline.It wasn’t just the paparazzi and the tabloids that reported — sometimes breathlessly — on Spears’s marriages, children, substance abuse issues and mental health challenges: So did The New York Times, as well as other newspapers, television news outlets and late-night comedy programs. Even the game show “Family Feud” found a way to work Spears in, asking contestants to list things that she had lost in the past year (“her hair,” “her husband”).In an interview, Samantha Barry, the editor in chief of Glamour, said of society’s treatment of Spears, “Hopefully we’re in a place where we won’t do that again, where we won’t lift up these celebrities — in particular women — and then proceed to rip them down.”Spears onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2016. In 2007, the comedian Sarah Silverman joked about the singer’s children at the awards show; this week, she apologized in a podcast.Credit…Charles Sykes/Invision, via Associated PressPeros, who started as a reporter for Us Weekly in 2006 and ultimately became editor in chief, believes that with a decade and a half of hindsight, the media would treat Spears differently now. Weekly magazines are “much more sensitive and handle stories like this more delicately,” she said, pointing to coverage of celebrities like Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, who have spoken more openly about mental health and substance abuse. Part of the evolution stems from the fact that these subjects are less stigmatized, but it’s also the result of journalists and editors understanding that aggressive media coverage would inevitably receive backlash now, Peros said.Us Weekly was one of the magazines that poured resources into relentlessly covering Spears. In a March 2007 cover story that read like a play-by-play of a natural disaster and its aftermath, the magazine interviewed a diner at a sushi restaurant that Spears’s mother visited, a clubgoer at a karaoke party Spears dropped in on, and cited an anonymous source in Antigua, where Spears briefly checked into a rehab clinic.“That was a time when she was making so much money for these magazines that we had the money to send a reporter to Antigua,” Peros said.Back then, it was Peros’s job in New York to search for nuggets of insight into Spears’s life by interviewing dancers or lighting assistants on her tour, searching through the Yellow Pages for their contact information and typically granting them anonymity to share things that they probably shouldn’t. If the reporters had the same awareness about mental health that they have today, they might not have dug so aggressively, she said.The main difference between then and now is the rise of social media, which has diluted the power of weekly magazines as the primary way to learn about celebrities’ personal lives. In some ways, social media can give celebrities more control over what people see: For Spears, her Instagram account is a repository for improvisational dancing, photos of her and her boyfriend, silly skits and random curiosities — all blasted out to an audience of 27.7 million followers.There may be fewer professional photographers following celebrities like Spears around now, but at the same time, almost everyone is armed with a smartphone and has the potential to become an amateur paparazzi. Instead of sending a reporter to go to Antigua to find out what Spears was up to, Us Weekly would now be scouring social media for photos of her there walking around town or eating at restaurants.Dax Holt, who was a producer at TMZ for over a decade and now co-hosts a podcast about Hollywood, said that he doesn’t necessarily blame the media for Spears’s breakdown but rather an American public that had an incessant curiosity for all things Britney. Still, Holt, who used to sift through paparazzi photos of Spears in his time at TMZ, said it made him sad to watch the documentary and see all that Spears had to endure.“I can’t even imagine what it would be like being a focal point of the world’s attention for so many years,” he said. “One little misstep and the whole world is laughing at you.”So far, the public has heard little from Spears herself about the documentary and the reactions to it. On Tuesday, she seemed to indirectly address the film in social media posts when she wrote, “I’ll always love being on stage …. but I am taking the time to learn and be a normal person.”This time, more people seem to be accepting that she is one.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    ‘Chappelle’s Show’ Returns to Netflix After Dave Chappelle Gets Paid

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Chappelle’s Show’ Returns to Netflix After Dave Chappelle Gets PaidThe comedian had asked fans to boycott his sketch show from the mid-2000s because of what he described as a “raw deal” from Comedy Central.“When you stopped watching it, they called me,” Chappelle said to his fans in a clip posted on Instagram on Friday. “And I got my name back, and I got my license back, and I got my show back.”Credit…Charles Sykes/Invision, via Associated PressFeb. 12, 2021Updated 1:14 p.m. ETLast fall, Dave Chappelle asked his fans to boycott his old Comedy Central sketch show, “Chappelle’s Show,” in order to put pressure on ViacomCBS to rectify his grievances over a contract he signed as a young comedian, and prominent streaming services agreed to pull the show at his request. The tactic seems to have worked.As a result of that public pressure, Chappelle, in a video posted early Friday on his Instagram, said he was paid “millions of dollars.” And “Chappelle’s Show” is now returning to Netflix and HBO Max.“When you stopped watching it, they called me,” Chappelle, 47, said in the clip. “And I got my name back, and I got my license back, and I got my show back, and they paid me millions of dollars. Thank you very much.”The issue arose in November, when Chappelle posted a video of a stand-up set in which he voiced his complaints against ViacomCBS, which owns Comedy Central. He said that the company had licensed “Chappelle’s Show” to Netflix and HBO Max without providing him any additional compensation or even informing him about the deal, something he understood to be legal under his contract but which he saw as unethical. Netflix then pulled the show at Chappelle’s request, followed by HBO Max.In the new video posted Friday, Chappelle thanked Ted Sarandos, the co-chief executive of Netflix, for having the “courage to take my show off its platform at financial detriment to his company, just because I asked him.” And he thanked Chris McCarthy, the president of ViacomCBS’s MTV Entertainment Group.In a statement, McCarthy said, “After speaking with Dave, I am happy we were able to make things right.”Officials at ViacomCBS did not disclose the details of the new arrangement. Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“Chappelle’s Show,” which had been broadcast on Comedy Central from 2003 to 2006, lasted for two full seasons before Chappelle, the show’s star and creator, walked away from it, sparking questions about how he could have abandoned what could have amounted to a $50 million deal. In 2006, after his departure, Chappelle told Oprah Winfrey in an interview that he had left the show in part because of stress and in part because he felt conflicted about the material he was producing, saying, “I was doing sketches that were funny, but were socially irresponsible.”Chappelle said that he had been a broke, expectant father when he signed the contract with Comedy Central, describing it as a “raw deal.” He framed his experience as emblematic of an immoral corporate entertainment system that mistreats artists.Now, Chappelle seems to have forgiven the company.“Finally after all these years,” Chappelle said, “I can finally say to Comedy Central, ‘It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.’”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Amber Ruffin to Co-Write Broadway Musical ‘Some Like It Hot’

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAmber Ruffin to Co-Write Broadway Musical ‘Some Like It Hot’The Emmy-nominated writer and performer will work with Matthew López to adapt the comedy for the stage.Amber Ruffin is getting her first taste of Broadway as a co-writer of the musical “Some Like It Hot.”Credit…Miranda Barnes for The New York TimesPublished More

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    Jimmy Kimmel Knows How the Impeachment Sequel Will End

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBest of Late NightJimmy Kimmel Knows How the Impeachment Sequel Will End“It’s kind of like ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’” Kimmel said. “We already know how it ends, but we’re watching it anyway.” Jimmy Kimmel isn’t expecting many Republican senators to vote against Donald Trump. “But a few of them, who knows? Maybe three ghosts will visit them in the middle of the night tonight.”Credit…ABCFeb. 12, 2021, 2:01 a.m. ETWelcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. We’re all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Oops, He Did It AgainThe House impeachment managers wrapped up their case against Donald Trump on Thursday, but the late-night hosts weren’t optimistic about the verdict.“It’s kind of like ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’” Jimmy Kimmel said. “We already know how it ends, but we’re watching it anyway.” “Democrats could — at this point, they could produce a video of Trump looking straight into the camera saying ‘I, Donald Trump, hereby incite this insurrection of violence,’ and most of the Republican senators would be like, ‘But where’s the proof? We didn’t see proof.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“House Democrats today concluded their impeachment case against former President Trump. ‘Well, you’ve given me plenty to not think about,’ said Rand Paul.” — SETH MEYERS“Yep, their presentation was so emotional and compelling that Republicans almost looked up from their phones.” — JIMMY FALLON“Most of them are lost causes. Like Tom Cotton, Bill Hagerty — these guys, they would eat the hair out of Donald Trump’s shower drain. But a few of them, who knows? Maybe three ghosts will visit them in the middle of the night tonight.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“These senators are a jury for a trial of the president, but instead, they’re acting like bored middle schoolers. What do Democrats have to do to make this interesting for them, bring in one of those math teachers who raps everything? ‘My name is Doug and I’m here to say, democracy was threatened in a major way.’” — TREVOR NOAH“Here’s the thing: if Americans cared as much about America as we do about Britney Spears, this would be a really great place to live.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Plead the 45th Edition)“Trump’s argument is basically, ‘Yes, maybe I did shout “fire” in a crowded theater, but the people trampling each other were acting on their own.’ And these people who acted on their own, I wonder if you can use stupidity as a defense? You can plead insanity, why not?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Essentially they were using Trump’s own words against him. What they are arguing is that Trump — and I promise this is the only time you will hear me say this — knew what he was doing.” — JAMES CORDEN“Guys, come on, don’t call Trump in the middle of the riot. You just saw him at the rally a couple hours ago — you gotta be chill. You call the morning after the insurrection, you know? You gotta play the game!” — TREVOR NOAH“Also, how embarrassing is this for Trump? Even his supporters knew they could call him any time and he won’t be busy.” — TREVOR NOAH“Overall, these videos make it pretty obvious that Trump incited the rioters. They were wearing Trump hats, carrying Trump flags, and they all just watched Trump speak, and they were chanting, ‘Fight for Trump!’ Even that dog from ‘Blue’s Clues’ is like, ‘I need a challenge here, guys. We all know what this is, right?’” — TREVOR NOAH“I mean, if one guy stormed the Capitol because he thought you said it to him, maybe you just can blame him. But if an entire stadium of people misunderstood you in the exact same way, I don’t know, man, that [expletive] on you.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingDesus and Mero got personal with their “life coach” Whoopi Goldberg.Also, Check This OutWiig and Mumolo in a musical number from the new film.Credit…Cate Cameron/LionsgateThe “Bridesmaids” co-writers Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo share the screen in their new collaboration, “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Gina Carano Is Off ‘Mandalorian’ Amid Backlash Over Instagram Post

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGina Carano Is Off ‘Mandalorian’ Amid Backlash Over Instagram PostLucasfilm’s statement came hours after a new backlash against the actress, who on Instagram compared “hating someone for their political views” to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.The actress Gina Carano as Cara Dune in the second season of “The Mandalorian,” Disney’s hit “Star Wars” spinoff series.Credit…Disney+Feb. 11, 2021Updated 4:56 p.m. ETThe actress Gina Carano, who starred as Cara Dune in the “Star Wars” spinoff series “The Mandalorian” on Disney+, on Wednesday compared “hating someone for their political views” to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust in an Instagram post, her latest social media post to create a fan backlash.Lucasfilm, the company within Disney that owns the show and the rest of the “Star Wars” franchise, condemned her comments and said in a statement that she was “not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future.”“Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable,” Lucasfilm said in a statement.Ms. Carano was also dropped by her agency, UTA, according to The Hollywood Reporter.The Instagram post, which re-shared an image from a different account, is no longer visible on her page. It led to thousands of complaints on social media, where many people used the hashtag #FireGinaCarano, not for the first time. (Some conservatives, who viewed her posts as a matter of free speech, countered with #CancelDisneyPlus.)In September, Ms. Carano added “beep/bop/boop” to her Twitter bio, which many saw as mockery of people who list their pronouns. She denied that accusation and said she was responding to people who asked her to list her pronouns, “exposing the bullying mentality of the mob that has taken over the voices of many genuine causes.”She said she talked with her “Mandalorian” co-star Pedro Pascal, who “helped me understand why people were putting them in their bios.” (Mr. Pascal would later publicly support his sister, Lux Pascal, an actress who came out as transgender this week.)Ms. Carano has also mocked the use of masks and the need for vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic, and embraced baseless claims of voter fraud after the presidential election.Before she shifted to acting, she was one of the world’s top female mixed-martial artists and performed for two years on “American Gladiator” under the stage name Crush. She appeared in seven episodes of “The Mandalorian” as a trusty ally of the protagonist, played by Mr. Pascal, and is otherwise known for roles in “Haywire,” “Deadpool” and “Fast & Furious 6.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Review: Shakespeare’s Baddies Convene in ‘All the Devils Are Here’

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s PickReview: Shakespeare’s Baddies Convene in ‘All the Devils Are Here’Patrick Page writes and stars in a meditation on the Bard’s villains, moving swiftly through a catalog of characters as if he were a chameleon.Patrick Page in “All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain,” filmed at Sidney Harman Hall in Washington.Credit…via Shakespeare Theater CompanyFeb. 11, 2021Updated 1:00 p.m. ETAll the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the VillainNYT Critic’s PickProspero steps out onto the stage, a sturdy white staff and book in hand. He kneels, opens the book and strikes the stage three times. As the last heavy thud echoes throughout the empty theater, the lights dim to an icy, concentrated glow. This is the magician, and this is his art.But it isn’t actually Shakespeare’s vengeful sorcerer we’re seeing; this is Patrick Page, and when he opens his mouth, it’s not Prospero but Lady Macbeth who speaks, in a jagged whisper. It’s a summoning: “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts.”It’s enough to make you shiver, and fitting for a play called “All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain,” an enchanting one-man show full of Shakespeare’s vilest, silliest and most misunderstood characters: the baddies. Produced by the Shakespeare Theater Company at Sidney Harman Hall in Washington, and directed by Alan Paul, “All the Devils Are Here” is a chronological catalog of Shakespeare’s villains — including the lady with stains on her hands that no amount of Purell can get out, and the cuckolding, crown-stealing sibling. Page, who also wrote the script (and is lately known for his performance as another grand villain, Hades, in the musical “Hadestown”), begins with some general context, bringing us back in time to the flimsy villains that showed up in 16th century morality plays and how a young Shakespeare, influenced by such shows and those of his contemporary Christopher Marlowe, first broached the role of the villain in his early works.In the roughly 80-minute production, Page peppers in tidbits about his personal relationship to the texts, like how he remained haunted by “Macbeth” even when he stepped off the stage, along with a few nods to Shakespeare in pop culture — like the imprint of “Hamlet” in “The Lion King” and the echoes of “Richard III” and “Macbeth” in “House of Cards.” Addressing some of the nuances behind the characterizations of these rapscallions and miscreants, Page asks worthwhile questions: Is Iago a sociopath? Does Shylock reflect Shakespeare’s early prejudices, and does Othello later subvert them? Is the jolly old rascal Falstaff not just a fool, but another villain to contend with?In the production, Page blends casual analysis with personal reflections on Shakespeare’s plays.Credit…via Shakespeare Theater CompanyThe production reminded me of another I’d enjoyed recently: the Irish Repertory Theater’s “On Beckett/In Screen,” written by and starring Bill Irwin (and available to stream this month as part of the theater’s Home Winter Festival). Both work in a form that speaks to the audience as not just vessels of the actor’s performance, but also as fellow scholars examining the text with him. I’m a student at heart, one of literature especially, so I count any piece that melds the virtuosity of stage performance with the intellectual rigor of a classroom, minus any didacticism, as a precious night of theater.And yet for Shakespeare stans like myself, the contextual analysis is a touch light, no more than the connective thread between villains. But when we do arrive at those villains — alas! — Page, with his bottomless bass (soon to be set to audio in a Shakespeare@Home production of “Julius Caesar”), seems possessed by such a mastery of his craft, moving teary-eyed through the pain of Shylock and the comic pomposity of Malvolio with such swiftness that it’s like watching a chameleon change hues before your eyes: stupefying, effortless.Does Page have the Weird Sisters casting spells by his side? I don’t think so, but just as well, he has Elizabeth A. Coco’s revelatory lighting, heralding and punctuating his tonal and oratorical shifts. Then there’s Gordon Nimmo-Smith’s exacting sound design, to create an air of mischief and terror, or usher in a scene in a verdant garden or rowdy pub.But it’s Page — looking exceptionally svelte in an all-black ensemble, standing or sitting at a lonely desk and chair onstage while the cameras follow him with a pristine eye and perfect attention — who is the devil, the mage, the usurper.In the final scene, he arrives at Prospero, who ends “The Tempest” rehabilitated and delivers one last monologue to the audience — here, the camera moves to show Page facing the empty theater — denouncing his magical games and bidding us farewell. Page does the same, snaps the staff in half and closes his book onstage.But has the spell really ended, just like that? Hours later, I’m still utterly beguiled.All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the VillainThrough July 28; shakespearetheatre.org.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    How the Trump Era Broke the Sunday-Morning News Show

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow the Trump Era Broke the Sunday-Morning News ShowAny number of hallowed political and media institutions fell apart. So why should the most hallowed political-media institution of them all escape unscathed? Credit…Photo illustration by Mike McQuadeFeb. 11, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETOn the Sunday after Joe Biden’s inauguration, Rand Paul appeared on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” to make baseless claims of election fraud and to lecture the host on how to do his job. “Hey, George, George, George!” the Republican senator from Kentucky sputtered at Stephanopoulos, who had repeatedly tried — and failed — to get Paul to acknowledge that Biden had not “stolen” November’s election. “Where you make a mistake,” Paul continued, “is that people coming from the liberal side like you, you immediately say everything’s a lie instead of saying there are two sides to everything. Historically what would happen is if I said that I thought that there was fraud, you would interview someone else who said there wasn’t. But now you insert yourself in the middle and say that the absolute fact is that everything that I’m saying is a lie.”Paul was not necessarily wrong in his criticism. Ever since Tim Russert became the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” in 1991 and began subjecting Democrats and Republicans to his “tough but fair” questions, the contemporary Sunday-​morning public-affairs show anchors have cast themselves as facilitators of a point-counterpoint format. “It’s not my job to express my opinions,” Stephanopoulos told The Hartford Courant upon being handed the reins of “This Week” in 2002. “It’s my job to ask the right questions, to make sure that people learn something from the program, to present all sides of the story and let people make up their own minds.”But nearly two decades later, Stephanopoulos’s approach was untenable. “Senator Paul, let me begin with a threshold question for you,” he said at the interview’s outset. “This election was not stolen, do you accept that fact?” Paul dodged the question to claim that there were “people who voted twice” and “dead people who voted” and “illegal aliens who voted.” Stephanopoulos repeated, “Can’t you just say the words ‘The election was not stolen’?” Paul could not; instead he gave Stephanopoulos his history lesson about Sunday shows. “You’re forgetting who you are as a journalist if you think there’s only one side,” Paul taunted.The interview was barely an hour old before Paul posted a link on Twitter. “Partisan Democrats in the media think they can get away with just calling Republicans liars because they don’t agree with us,” he wrote. “Watch me stand up to one here.” Three days later, The Federalist ran a story headlined: “Rand Paul’s Cage Match With George Stephanopoulos Is a Pattern Everyone on the Right Should Follow.”The Donald Trump years have broken any number of hallowed political and media institutions, so why should the most hallowed political-media institution of them all, the Sunday show, escape unscathed? Yes, those self-important shows with their self-important anchors have never been as crucial to our constitutional system as they like to imagine. But they have at least provided a refuge from the soft-focused fecklessness of the networks’ evening news and the shrieking of the prime-time carnival barkers on cable. That changed during Trump’s presidency. In some instances, the shows were less about educating the viewing audience than flattering an audience of one. “The reality is that the president is a political genius,” Stephen Miller told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” during a contentious interview in 2018. “I’m sure he’s watching and is happy you said that,” Tapper told Miller. (Trump soon tweeted a link to the segment, praising Miller.)Even worse, the shows became platforms for disinformation. In October 2019, Chuck Todd invited Ron Johnson, a Republican senator from Wisconsin, on “Meet the Press” to discuss the revelation that Trump had withheld military aid to Ukraine unless the country’s president agreed to investigate the business dealings of Hunter Biden. Johnson previously told The Wall Street Journal that he “winced” when he learned those two issues were connected. But when Todd asked about that report — “What made you wince?” — Johnson launched into a conspiracy theory about the origins of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. “I have no idea why we’re going here,” Todd complained. Two months later, Ted Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, reached out to “Meet the Press” to discuss the Ukraine scandal. As Todd later told Rolling Stone, he assumed that Cruz, an avowed Russia hawk, wanted to push back against a Russian disinformation campaign. But when Todd asked Cruz whether he thought Ukraine tried to sway the 2016 elections, Cruz replied, “I do.” “You do?” Todd asked in disbelief. “Here’s the game the media is playing,” Cruz said. “Because Russia interfered, the media pretends nobody else did.” Looking back on the interview, Todd told Rolling Stone: “He wants to use this for some sort of appeasement of the right. I didn’t know what else to think.”Todd appears to have done a good deal of thinking about the plight of the Sunday show. In 2018, he wrote a cri de coeur for The Atlantic about “a nearly 50-year campaign to delegitimize the press,” imploring his colleagues to fight back: “It means not allowing ourselves to be spun, and not giving guests or sources a platform to spin our readers and viewers, even if that angers them.” A few months later, Todd hosted an episode of “Meet the Press” dedicated to climate change and made a point of not inviting any climate-change deniers. But should climate denialism be the only verboten point of view on Sunday shows? Last month, more than three dozen progressive groups wrote an open letter to members of the media calling on them to interview only those elected officials who “publicly concede that the 2020 presidential election was free and fair, and that claims to the contrary are false.” In other words, the groups wanted journalists to give Republicans who lie about election fraud the same treatment Twitter and Facebook gave Trump: deplatforming them. It’s hard to imagine, however, the Sunday shows ever taking such a step. There are, of course, the financial incentives: The trade associations and defense contractors that sponsor the Sunday shows presumably expect bipartisan bang for their advertising bucks. But the bigger impediment is the shows’ self-conception. If “This Week” and “Meet the Press” were to deplatform Republicans who won’t acknowledge, without caveats, that Biden won, then their guests would consist almost entirely of Democrats — and the Sunday shows would resemble prime-time programs on MSNBC and CNN. No self-respecting Sunday show wants that. In January, Todd beseeched what he called “sober-minded” Republicans to appear on his show. “Stop helping to reinforce the incorrect notion that the mainstream news media isn’t interested in your side of the debate,” he wrote in Politico.In the meantime, the Sunday shows are making do with those Republicans who will show up. Earlier that same month, Todd again hosted Ron Johnson, who again used the opportunity to spew nonsense, boasting about a recent hearing he had held to look into allegations of voter fraud. “The fact of the matter is that we have an unsustainable state of affairs in this country where we have tens of millions of people that do not view this election result as legitimate,” Johnson said at one point.“Then why don’t you hold hearings about the 9/11 truthers?” Todd asked. “How about the moon landing? Are you going to hold hearings on that?” It was a good line, and Todd seemed pleased with himself. It did not occur to Todd, however, that the same question could be asked of him. If “Meet the Press” is going to have guests like Johnson, why doesn’t it host 9/11 truthers and moon-landing conspiracists as well?Source photographs by Joshua Roberts/Getty Images; Andrew Toth/FilmMagic, via Getty Images. AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More