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    Keegan-Michael Key Reaches into the Past With ‘Midnight Run’ and ‘Electric Ladyland’

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMy TenKeegan-Michael Key Reaches into the Past With ‘Midnight Run’ and ‘Electric Ladyland’The actor, who appears in the upcoming musical “The Prom,” looks back on improv guides, Whoopi Goldberg’s comedy and Diego Rivera’s murals.Credit…Rich Polk/Getty Images For ImdbDec. 15, 2020, 10:00 a.m. ETThe world may have turned upside-down this year, but the actor-producer Keegan-Michael Key has grounded himself in his work, finding a refuge from the isolation and anxiety of the pandemic.For a gregarious person like Key, who is used to collaborating with others on set in projects like Netflix’s “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey,” Ryan Murphy’s musical “The Prom,” and even “Home Movie: The Princess Bride” on Quibi (R.I.P.), conditions this year have forced him to work remotely every day.“It’s been fascinating to have just finished work before the pandemic really hit the States,” he said. “I was in a very, very communal experience, working on ‘The Prom.’ And then the stark contrast of doing Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting and doing audio work from your home.”Digging into the things that bring him joy has helped him keep his equilibrium, he says. In a recent phone interview from Vancouver, where he’s shooting a musical comedy for Apple TV+, Key walked through the 10 things he’s found himself revisiting during his extra time. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “Every Frame a Painting”There’s a YouTube channel by a gentleman by the name of Tony Zhou, and it’s about film critique. The channel is called Every Frame a Painting [cocreated by Taylor Ramos]. I just absolutely love it, and I think it’s a tragedy that he stopped making them. Of the videos on the channel, my two favorite videos would be How to Do Visual Comedy, which is pretty much an exploration of Edgar Wright and his work. And then there’s one called How to Do Action Comedy, which is an entire episode about the art and craft of Jackie Chan.I think part of what draws me to all that stuff, to both of those, is the theatricality of them. So, the stuff with Jackie Chan I find so fascinating because he talks about how he locks off shots. He doesn’t pan or track. He always lets the performer do the special effects in the camera. So, seeing people actually jump and leap and fall and be struck is so dynamic and exciting to experience. With Edgar Wright, it’s the opposite. He uses a lot of artistry to show the passage of time, and a person moving from one place to another using cinematic techniques.But every single episode is an absolute gem. Sometimes if I’m just sitting during the day and I’m being contemplative or I have a break, I’ll find myself gravitating toward Every Frame a Painting. And it’s just something that gives me a lot of joy, and a lot of edification.2. “Impro” and “Impro for Storytellers” by Keith JohnstoneI had a director at the Second City who taught a technique about improvisation that he shared with us in a very figurative manner.He told us this quote, and I’m paraphrasing, about an improviser’s job is always to walk back, as if you’re walking backward. A performer’s always walking backward through space. As you keep walking backward, more things come into your field of vision.Oh, that’s a window, and that’s a lamp that’s now in the window. And I back up, now I see the kitchen counter. You need to see all of those things to help establish where you are.He got that idea from Keith Johnstone. He wrote a couple of really amazing books called “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre” and “Impro for Storytellers.” And they were just perpetual manuals for me when I was performing as an improviser full-time and also teaching. And I just find so many fantastic things about narrative and how he looks at game play and how to open children’s minds and have them experience life in a fearless manner.3. “Midnight Run”One of my favorite movies of all time is “Midnight Run,” with Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Dennis Farina. Martin Brest directed it. American action films at that time had quite a lot of humor in them. But the bullets were still real. And there was this sensibility that the danger was gritty and authentic, yet there was also a place for jokes. And that’s fascinating to me.If you watch “Midnight Run,” it’s the funniest I think De Niro ever was in his career. Everything in the piece fits together. The narrative of the piece, and also how he’s reacting to Grodin. There was something very authentic about their buddy story, about the evolution of them coming together as two people.4. Kehinde WileyI think Kehinde Wiley is amazing. Just talk about an artist who really effectively uses juxtaposition. And the way that he celebrates the Black experience through another older experience. Legitimizing our very existence by saying, “Why couldn’t we have been any different to men on horseback with all this frippery, and regaling themselves with sashes and capes and sabers?” His art, it’s so dynamic and colorful and powerful and inspiring. I can’t go to an art museum right now, but I really enjoy his books so much.5. The Detroit Industry MuralsI’m from Detroit, and there’s a real love of epic that I have. In the Detroit Institute of Arts, there’s a room, and all the walls are filled with these murals that were painted by Diego Rivera in the ’30s. And they’re absolutely magnificent. It’s just these great images of all the people of the world. And then below it, almost the evolution of industry, and it’s fantastic. It’s just breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking.6. “The Great Eastern” by Howard RodmanI read a book right on the edge of Covid. It’s a piece of historical fiction called “The Great Eastern,” and it’s fantastic.There was a civil engineer in the 19th century in England by the name Isambard Kingdom Brunel. And he helped build the tunnel underneath the Thames, and he did all this in the 1850s, 1860s. A ship called the Great Eastern suffered from an explosion. That’s all historical fact. But Howard Rodman, the author, what he did is you find out it was actually a terrorist attack. A gentleman blew up the ship, and then kidnapped Brunel. And you find out, through the story, that the person who kidnapped him is Captain Nemo.It’s great. It’s been my favorite read of the year so far.7. “Electric Ladyland” by the Jimi Hendrix ExperienceI’m an enormous Jimi Hendrix fan. I think that “Electric Ladyland,” which was his third album, is an absolute masterpiece. And something that if I ever really want to get lost in a song, my favorite song on that album is a song called “1983 … (A Merman I Should Turn to Be).” And it’s like a whole big opus. And I love this song. It’s one of these great songs that has movements in it. I don’t even know how he makes the sound, but these wonderful sounds of, like, sea bells. Like, foghorn-y sounds and sea gulls. He paints a seascape with sound, and makes bubbly sounds with the bass guitar and the guitar. And the whole song is about being someone who’s submerging underneath water, because that’s going to be a place to exist in the future.8. East Asian CinemaI’m a big fan of kung fu and wuxia cinema. There was a movie that came out in 2002 called “Hero,” which is a Zhang Yimou film, with Jet Li, Tony Leung, and Zhang Ziyi. But it’s just one of the most visually sumptuous things I’ve ever seen in my life. Every character is represented by a color. And it reminds me a lot of Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran.” Which again, it’s something that plays with different factions and different characters being explained by color, or influencing you, the viewer, by the color. It’s another one of these films that I could watch whenever. It’s almost like my eyes are having Thanksgiving dinner almost every 10 minutes. I’ve always had a kind of steady diet of those movies in my life.9. “Whoopi Goldberg on Broadway”I think one of the most influential things for me as an artist, but also for me seeing the world in a new way that’s always stuck for me, is when I used to listen to Whoopi Goldberg. I didn’t get to see her on Broadway, but my parents had the album, and I would listen to her play these different characters. And it was astounding. Here’s this African-American woman who’s playing several characters. She’s playing a woman with disabilities, she plays a young girl who’s Black but she had blonde hair. She’s playing a surfer girl who, as I’m listening to it, I’m hearing her voice, I’m going, “OK, yes, this girl is supposed to be white.”And then she plays this educated junkie. A junkie who travels to Amsterdam and goes to the Anne Frank [House], and talking about, “When I got my degree at Columbia,” and the audience always laughs, and she goes, “What? You think I was a junkie for my whole life?” And it’s one little line in the thing, but you go, “Oh my gosh, that’s so brilliant.” The character becomes this fully realized human in this tiny thing. It’s her using something Jordan Peele called comedic judo. She’s using your expectations against you. And it’s done so deftly.10. “Laughter” by Henri BergsonHe posits these theories about why we laugh. And one of them is about flexibility and malleability in society. So that when we move through society, we all try to be, for the most part, as fluid as we can with each other. Oftentimes, inflexibility or rigidity is what brings about laughter. There are these unwritten contracts that we have with each other, that I’m going to keep this much distance from you, or I walk out of the way as you’re coming down the street. You know, that kind of situation. We have these moments, small, infinitesimal, almost imperceptible negotiations with each other all the time. And when someone refuses to negotiate, sometimes the result is laughter.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Black Student Expelled After Mother Complains About 'Fences'

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Race and PolicingFacts on Walter Wallace Jr. CaseFacts on Breonna Taylor CaseFacts on Daniel Prude CaseFacts on George Floyd CaseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Black Student’s Mother Complained About ‘Fences.’ He Was Expelled.A dispute about the reading of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play in an English class escalated at the mostly white Providence Day School in Charlotte, N.C.Faith Fox and her son Jamel.Credit…Travis Dove for The New York TimesDec. 15, 2020, 5:30 a.m. ETWhen the mother of a Black ninth grader at a private school in Charlotte, N.C., learned last month that his English class was going to be studying August Wilson’s “Fences,” an acclaimed play examining racism in 1950s America, she complained to the school.The drama, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 and was adapted into a critically praised film starring Denzel Washington in 2016, is about a Black family and is peppered with racial slurs from the first page.Faith Fox, a lawyer and single mother, said in an interview that she imagined her son’s mostly white class at the Providence Day School reading the dialogue out loud. She said her main concern was that the themes were too mature for the group and would foster stereotypes about Black families.After a round of emails and a meeting with Ms. Fox, the school agreed to an alternate lesson for her son, Jamel, 14. The school also discussed complaints with the parents of four other students. Ms. Fox’s disagreement escalated. She took it to a parents’ Facebook group, and later fired off an email that school officials said was a personal attack on a faculty member.On the day after Thanksgiving, the school notified Ms. Fox that Jamel would no longer be attending the school, the only one he had ever known.His mother called it an expulsion. The school referred to it as “a termination of enrollment” that had to do with the parent, not the student. Either way, what was meant to be a literary lesson in diversity and inclusion had somehow cost a Black 14-year-old his place in an elite private high school.Jamel had recently made the school basketball team and said in an interview that he hoped to graduate as a Providence Day lifer. “I was completely crushed,” he said. “There was no, ‘Please don’t kick me out, I won’t say this, I won’t say that, my mom won’t say this, my mom won’t say that.’” He is making plans to attend public school in January.This year has brought a reckoning with race at many American institutions, including schools. When widespread street protests erupted after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, young people across the country used social media to expose racism at their schools. At Providence Day School, Black students shared stories of discrimination and insensitivity on Instagram, and the school was among many that released statements against racism.“For the Black members of our community, we see you, we hear you and we will act,” the statement said. The school also revised its bias complaint process and created alumni, faculty and student diversity groups.But Ms. Fox said, she felt the school’s treatment of her son proved this was all just lip service.“You can have the important conversations about race and segregation without destroying the confidence and self-esteem of your Black students and the Black population,” Ms. Fox said in an interview. Just over 7 percent of the school’s 1,780 students are Black, about 70 percent are white, and the rest identify as members of other minority groups.A spokeswoman for the school, Leigh Dyer, said last week that officials were “saddened” that Jamel had to leave.“As a school community, we value a diversity of thought and teach students to engage in civil discourse around topics that they might not necessarily agree on,” Ms. Dyer said. “We have the same expectation for the adults in our community.”The Nov. 27 termination letter cited “bullying, harassment and racially discriminatory actions” and “slanderous accusations towards the school itself” by Jamel’s mother.Ms. Dyer provided a statement that said Ms. Fox had made “multiple personal attacks against a person of color in our school administration, causing that person to feel bullied, harassed and unsafe” in the discussions about “Fences.” It also said Ms. Fox had a history of making “toxic” statements about the faculty and others at the school, but did not provide examples.Ms. Fox denied this. “Instead of addressing the issue they’re trying to make me seem like an angry, ranting Black woman,” she said.The New York Times reviewed emails and Facebook messages that Ms. Fox provided and also interviewed two other Providence Day parents who said they had similar concerns about the play and about a video the school used to facilitate conversations about the racial slur. They spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their children.The school had notified parents in early November about the lesson plan in an email. Noting the frequent appearance of the slur in dialogue, it said that students would say “N-word” instead when reading aloud. It said time would be “devoted to considering the word itself and some of its more nuanced aspects of meaning.”The email included a link to a PBS NewsHour interview with Randall Kennedy, a Black professor at Harvard, discussing the history of the slur while using it repeatedly.“It wasn’t something that I thought was appropriate for a roomful of elite, affluent white children,” Ms. Fox said.Her son was also dreading the lesson, which he would have attended via video because of the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s really awkward being in a classroom of majority white students when those words come up,” Jamel said, “because they just look at you and laugh at you, talk about you as soon as you leave class. I can’t really do anything because I’m usually the only Black person there.”Ms. Dyer, the spokeswoman, said the school had introduced the study of “Fences” in 2017 in response to Black parents who wanted more lessons addressing race. In past years, there had been only one complaint about the play, she said.After her son was offered an alternative assignment, Ms. Fox posted about “Fences” to the Facebook group. Other parents said they too had concerns about the play and the PBS video. One comment directed her to an online essay by a student from a prior year who described the “dagger” she felt “cutting deeper and deeper” with each mention of the slur in the video.That’s when Ms. Fox sent an email to the school’s director of equity and inclusion, calling her a “disgrace to the Black community.” Ten days later, Jamel was kicked out of the school. Ms. Fox said that she was surprised but that she does not regret sending the email in the heat of the moment.After Jamel’s expulsion, a letter signed by “concerned Black faculty members” was sent to parents of the four other students who had complained, arguing the literary merits of “Fences.” It said great African-American writers do not create perfect Black characters when they are trying to show the “damaging legacy of racism.”That is a view held by many critics and academics. Sandra G. Shannon, a professor of African-American literature at Howard University and founder of the August Wilson Society, said schools should not shy away from the “harsh realities of the past.”Katie Rieser, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, said “Fences” is taught widely in middle school and high school, but she also urged that it be done so with care.“It’s telling a story about a Black family that, if it’s the only text or it’s one of only a few texts about Black people that students read, might give white students in particular a sense that Black families are all like this Black family,” she said.Ms. Fox said the fight to be heard as a Black parent at a predominantly white private institution had been “exhausting.”She recalled when Jamel came home upset in elementary school after a field trip to a former slave plantation. After she complained, the school ended the annual trips, she said.The other day, she said her son told her he finally understood “why Black Lives Matter is so important and is not just about George Floyd and all of these people dying in the streets, but it also has to do with how we’re treated everywhere else.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Late Night Is Ready to Take Jabs

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBest of Late NightLate Night Is Ready to Take Jabs“That’s right, people all across America are lining up for shots,” Jimmy Fallon said on Monday. “Normally, when that happens here in December, we call it SantaCon.”“What a moment for the country,” Jimmy Fallon said on Monday. “Right now, enthusiasm for the vaccine is somewhere between the new PS5 and the McRib.”Credit…NBCDec. 15, 2020, 2:03 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.Shots, Shots, Shots, Shots!Late-night hosts celebrated on Monday what Trevor Noah referred to as the one thing Americans have been waiting for since March: “No, not Rihanna’s album — the vaccine.”“What a moment for the country,” Jimmy Fallon said, echoing the excitement. “Right now, enthusiasm for the vaccine is somewhere between the new PS5 and the McRib.”[embedded content]“This is the most excited I’ve been to watch someone else’s doctor appointment since Evel Knievel got a routine physical over Snake River Canyon.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“But today was really special. Usually if I want to see people on TV who’ve gotten injections, I have to watch Bravo.” — JIMMY FALLON“Plus, they unveiled the brand-new post-shot sticker: ‘Crushing Covid-19, got my vaccine.’ A much better rhyme than 1885’s ‘Immune from cholera, now back to a life of squalor-a.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The first Covid vaccine in the U.S. has been given. It was a little less exciting when the nurse was handed a bill for 50 grand, but still.” — JIMMY FALLON“The very first dose went to a critical-care nurse in New York. Needless to say, her Tinder is blowing up.” — JAMES CORDEN“This must be what it felt like watching the moon landing. It was a historic scientific achievement that you just know a bunch of idiot jabronis are going to say was faked.” — SETH MEYERS“You know that 2020 has been weird because I’m looking at a person in a face mask getting injected and I’m thinking, ‘I cannot wait for that to be me.’” — JAMES CORDEN“I read that the vaccine needs to be stored at ultracold temperatures, around negative 100 degrees. In response, UPS workers looked at their shorts and said, ‘Yeah, it seems like more of a FedEx thing.’” — JIMMY FALLON“You realize this time next week, we’re all going to be back in the club, like, ‘Shots, shots, shots, shots — in my arm, please!’” — TREVOR NOAH“That’s right, people all across America are lining up for shots. Normally when that happens here in December, we call it SantaCon.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Huge if Still True Edition)“Huge news. Just moments before tonight’s taping, the Electoral College officially certified that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election — again. He did it; he’s still the winner!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Great, the guy hasn’t even taken office yet, but his election victory is already in its second term. We’re going to be seeing articles about Biden fatigue before Christmas.” — SETH MEYERS“This is a relief. I would hate to start another week of shows without talking about the same election results we’ve all known for the last month and a half.” — JAMES CORDEN“At this point, Joe Biden has won the election so many times, he’s our 46th through 51st president.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“This is also big news because this means after six agonizing weeks, the election is finally over. Stick a fork in the president; he’s done. Also, keep that fork handy because poking him in the butt might be the only way to get him out of the White House.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingMegan Thee Stallion performed a Santa-inspired remix of her hit song “Savage” on Monday’s “Late Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightAlanis Morissette will perform on Tuesday night’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutNat Wolff in the coming version of the Stephen King novel “The Stand,” which includes a new ending written by King.Credit…Robert Falconer/CBSStephen King reflects on small-screen adaptations of his horror stories, from “It” to an updated take of “The Stand.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Donald Trump Lost His Battle. The Culture War Goes On.

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCRITIC’S NOTEBOOKDonald Trump Lost His Battle. The Culture War Goes On.The reality-TV president was a practitioner, and a product, of a style of pop-cultural grievance that will outlast him.President Trump gloried in inviting conservative celebrities like Kid Rock, right, to the White House.Credit…Gabriella Demczuk for The New York TimesDec. 14, 2020You could say that the Trump presidency effectively ended when the polls closed election night or when news outlets called the contest for Joseph R. Biden Jr. four days later. You could say that it ended when the Electoral College voted on Monday to make Mr. Biden the president, or that it will end when Mr. Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20.But by one measure, the Trump presidency ended in mid-November, when online conservatives went bonkers over a picture of Harry Styles in a dress.The photo of the British singer on the cover of the December Vogue prompted the YouTube personality Candace Owens to tweet, “Bring back manly men.” To Ben Shapiro, the photo shoot was an assault on the concept of manhood itself: “Anyone who pretends that it is not a referendum on masculinity for men to don floofy dresses is treating you as a full-on idiot.”What does all this have to do with the president’s impending exit? First, it suggests that other conservatives are retaking the role of Troll-Warrior-in-Chief that Mr. Trump conferred on himself.But it’s also a reminder that the kind of button-pushing cultural politics that predated him — that in many ways helped make a President Trump possible — will survive his tenure.‘Duck Dynasty’ PoliticsA million years ago in the Obama era, proxy wars over culture were handled on the periphery of conservatism, in social media and right-wing talk. It was the era of the Gamergate attacks on feminists in the video gaming community, of umbrage over the foreign-language lyrics of a Coca-Cola commercial and over a female-cast reboot of “Ghostbusters.”With the election of President Trump, a pop-culture figure himself who intuited the connection between cultural fandom and political tribalism (he himself made a “Ghostbusters” outrage video the year he announced his campaign), the political and culture-war wings of conservatism merged.For four years, we had a president whose portfolio of concerns included protests at N.F.L. games, speeches at TV awards ceremonies, the loyalty of Fox News and the reboot of “Roseanne.” He scoured and fretted over Nielsen ratings — his own and those of shows he saw as allies and enemies — with the intensity a wartime president might devote to troop movements.Now, with a waning Mr. Trump self-soothing with OANN and Newsmax and tweeting out the elaborate sci-fi serial that the election was stolen from him, command of that battle is returning from the White House to the field.Phil Robertson, who was briefly suspended from the reality show “Duck Dynasty” in 2013 for homophobic and racist comments, with Mr. Trump at a 2019 rally.Credit…Larry W Smith/EPA, via ShutterstockFor decades, the expression of politics through culture war has been a staple of conservative media. Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing online publisher, declared that “politics is downstream from culture” (borrowing an idea from Marxist theorists like Antonio Gramsci). Fox News made an annual production of the “war on Christmas” (with occasional spinoffs like “Santa Claus and Jesus are white”).The appeal was emotional; people have a personal connection to family holidays and their favorite shows that they don’t to, say, marginal tax-rate policy. But it was also a way to appeal to a specific audience in a country where, increasingly, people had not just different political beliefs but entirely different cultural experiences.As far back as the early 1970s, the “rural purge” in TV — which eliminated bucolic sitcoms like “Green Acres” to make room for urban ones like “All in the Family” — reinforced the idea that there were different Americas with different, and even competing, popular cultures. This dynamic only spread with cable TV and the internet, which sliced and diced us into a nation of niche demos, sharing a geography but occupying different psychic spaces.As the historians Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer write in “Fault Lines,” their study of American polarization since the 1970s, all this led to “a world with fewer points of commonality in terms of what people heard or saw.” This was true in politics and in entertainment, and the two often overlapped.There was now identifiable red and blue pop culture. A 2016 Times study found a TV divide that mirrored the rural-urban split in the election. “Deadliest Catch,” the reality show about Alaskan crab fishing, was popular in red America; in blue zones, “Orange Is the New Black,” the Netflix drama and critique of the prison system.The brief suspension of Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the “Duck Dynasty” clan, had divided the country.  Credit…Gerald Herbert/Associated PressA 2014 poll found that 53 percent of Democrats, compared with 15 percent of Republicans, believed “Twelve Years a Slave” should win the best-picture Oscar. Neither party had taken a position on the movie; the culture war was just well-enough ingrained that people could intuit where their side would land, just as the Iraq War movie “American Sniper” became a conservative favorite and liberal target.Knowingly or not, audience members enlisted in the culture war as volunteers. For conservatives in particular, the liberal tilt of Hollywood was a useful font of grievance, allowing them to claim cultural victimhood no matter how much political and judicial power they held.And people increasingly saw their favorite stars as their proxies and champions. When Phil Robertson, the bayou patriarch of “Duck Dynasty,” was briefly suspended from the reality show in 2013 for homophobic and racist comments, one America saw it as political correctness taking down a beloved star for speaking his mind. Another America — if they had ever heard of “Duck Dynasty” at all — saw a bigot getting what he had coming to him.The Culture-Troll-in-ChiefAll of this, in retrospect, was an advance trailer for the it-came-from-“The Apprentice” Trump era.Politicians, especially on the right, have dabbled in culture war before: George H.W. Bush vs. “The Simpsons,” Dan Quayle vs. “Murphy Brown,” Bob Dole vs. rap. But their forays tended to be awkward, tone-deaf and often as not, self-defeating.But Mr. Trump, a child of TV who made himself into a TV character as an adult, understood media instinctively. It was where he lived, ever since he gave up his youthful fantasies of running a movie studio, vowed to “put show business into real estate” and forged his tabloid persona in the 1980s.Having used media to build a reality-show career and a business-success myth, having experienced the rush of primetime celebrity, he knew that culture makes the kind of gut connection that mere politicians can only dream of. Ordinary politics argues: Those other people don’t believe what you believe. Culture-war politics argues: Those other people don’t love what you love.So Mr. Trump’s campaign, as much as it was about wall-building or Islamophobia or “law and order,” was also about a promise to defend and uphold his followers’ culture over the enemy’s. His rallies combined a concert vibe with the theatrics of pro wrestling (another genre Mr. Trump had experience with).To an audience that had been told for years that showbiz celebrities disdained their values, here was one of their celebrities, a real celebrity from TV, taking their side. An alt-rightist essay on Breitbart.com hailed the erstwhile NBC host as “the first truly cultural candidate for President” since Patrick J. Buchanan, the CNN “Crossfire” co-host who declared a “cultural war” for “the soul of America” at the 1992 Republican National Convention.Ted Nugent performed at a campaign event for Mr. Trump in Michigan in October.Credit…Rey Del Rio/Getty ImagesTrump’s 2016 RNC didn’t have a lot of high-profile politicians, but it did have a “Duck Dynasty” star. As president, he gloried in inviting conservative celebrities like Kid Rock and Ted Nugent (who once called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel”), as well as the newly conservative-curious Kanye West, to take photos in the Oval Office.The pictures felt like spoils of war, a political end-zone dance. And his fiercest celebrity critics often played into his me-vs.-Hollywood narrative, cursing him out at the Tony Awards or feuding with him on Twitter.He praised Western culture as superior because “we write symphonies,” tooting a white-nationalist dog whistle from the orchestra pit. And he threw himself wholeheartedly into fights like the one over ABC’s reboot of “Roseanne,” whose star, Roseanne Barr, had become a real-life, vituperative Twitter Trumpist, and which worked her politics into the story lines.He didn’t, like previous presidents attending the Kennedy Center honors or sharing a something-for-everyone Spotify playlist, see culture as a way to find common ground. He saw it as a battleground with winners and losers, and one full of opportunities to inflame divisions.When the “Roseanne” premiere dominated the ratings, he crowed about it as his team trouncing the enemy. “It’s about us!” he told a crowd of supporters.Later, when ABC fired Ms. Barr from the show over a racist tweet, Mr. Trump joined the argument, not to condemn Ms. Barr’s remarks but to accuse the network of hypocrisy because of “HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC.” It echoed his Twitter attack on the network in 2014 when it picked up the sitcom “black-ish”: “Can you imagine the furor of a show, ‘Whiteish’! Racism at highest level?”His bellyaching against Hollywood wasn’t just a bread-and-circuses distraction. It was political messaging. Pushing back on Ms. Barr’s firing — for likening a Black former Obama aide to an ape — echoed the right’s fixation on “cancel culture.” The message: Your stars are being canceled. Your shows are being canceled. You are being canceled. Only I am the network executive who can ensure your renewal.After ABC fired Roseanne Barr from the reboot of “Roseanne” over a racist tweet, Mr. Trump accused the network of hypocrisy.Credit…Brinson+Banks for The New York TimesHis fixation on ratings (dating back to “The Apprentice,” whose ratings he routinely lied about) vibed with his worldview of competition and scorekeeping. Fights about representation, American identity and the boundaries of acceptable speech aligned with messages expressed, in more blunt and ugly ways, by Mr. Trump’s campaign and supporters — especially the insidious language of “replacement.”“Now they’re making ‘Ghostbusters’ with only women. What’s going on!” was a way of telling men that he would protect them from becoming superfluous. “We can say ‘Merry Christmas’ again” was a way of saying: Your culture used to be the assumed default in America, and I’m going to bring that back. The enemy wants to demote you to a supporting player; I’m going to make you the star again.The Tug-of-Culture-War Goes OnMuch of this, of course, was a reaction to the expansion of the American story implied by the election of America’s first Black president and by the representative pop culture of Obama’s era, like “black-ish” and “Hamilton.” Often, there’s a sense (at least in retrospect) of a new cultural era beginning with a new presidential administration: JFK, the New Frontier and youth culture; Reagan, “Family Ties” and “greed is good.”Though the Biden administration has yet to begin, it doesn’t feel like that kind of definitive shift at the moment, so much as the flag moving to the other side of the centerline in a continuing tug of war. Things may get quieter on the surface; Mr. Biden is neither as big a pop-culture guy nor as zealous a culture warrior as the president he’s replacing.But as every tempest over a Vogue cover proves, the fight goes on. The divides are too deep, the incentives for widening them too great. Whether Mr. Trump continues to have a major part in this after he leaves office, or whether his ratings ragetweets simply echo in some musty corner of the internet, the ongoing narrative he has left us with will continue.The secret of a long-running show, after all, is that it can survive a cast change.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    ‘Six’ Tries to Get Back Onstage. Again, and Again, and Again.

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Six’ Tries to Get Back Onstage. Again, and Again, and Again.For nine months, the hit musical about the wives of Henry VIII has tried to keep the show going. But that’s not easy in a pandemic.A security guard takes ticket holders’ temperatures before a performance of “Six” in London, on Dec. 5.Credit…Photographs by Suzanne Plunkett for The New York TimesPublished More

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    Days After Reopening, London Theaters Must Shut

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Latest Vaccine InformationU.S. Deaths Surpass 300,000F.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDays After Reopening, London Theaters Must ShutThe musical “Six” and a concert version of “Les Miserables” are among the shows that will close because of rising coronavirus cases in the city.Pedestrians walk past the Lyric Theatre before the performance of the musical “Six” in London on Dec. 5.Credit…Suzanne Plunkett for The New York TimesDec. 14, 2020LONDON — On Dec. 5, “Six” — the hit show about the wives of Henry VIII — staged a triumphant comeback when it became the first musical to be staged in London’s West End since the coronavirus pandemic began in March.Now, just nine days later, that comeback has been brought to a sharp halt.Matt Hancock, Britain’s health secretary, announced on Monday that the government was tightening restrictions in London, as well as other parts of southern England, because of a “very sharp, exponential rise” in coronavirus cases. The new restrictions, which include a ban on theatrical performances and the closure of other indoor cultural institutions, like museums, would take effect Wednesday, he added. Pubs and restaurants would also close, though they could still offer takeout.“For businesses affected, it will be a significant blow, but this action is absolutely essential,” Hancock said, addressing Britain’s Parliament.Many theaters in London have been closed since the beginning of the pandemic, in March, though some smaller shows returned in the summer, with reduced audiences and socially distanced performers.In November, some major productions, including “Six,” were slated to return, but the British government announced a national lockdown that scrapped their plans.That lockdown lifted on Dec. 2 and England moved to a tiered system of restrictions, with differing rules around the country, including for cultural events.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    Review: A World of Cardsharps and Zoom Dupes in ‘The Future’

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyReview: A World of Cardsharps and Zoom Dupes in ‘The Future’In his latest magic show, Helder Guimarães shuffles an old genre into a new technology with mixed results.Helder Guimarães in “The Future,” his Zoom magic show for the Geffen Playhouse.Credit…Julie RenfroDec. 14, 2020When a used-car salesman says, “I will be honest,” it’s a sure sign he won’t be.Same with a card huckster. For him, “I will be honest” means “Don’t look at my hands.” Other tells may include “You saw for yourself that this deck was legitimately shuffled.” (It wasn’t.) Or “I want this to be as fair as possible.” (Watch your wallet.)All of these are part of Helder Guimarães’s patter in “The Future,” a Zoom magic show from the Geffen Playhouse trying very hard to be more — but only partly succeeding. Oddly, it’s the magic part that most disappoints, at least as theater. The “more” part, a stretch toward greater meaning, is engaging even as you wonder if it too is a deception.That stretch comes between card tricks, as Guimarães offers glimpses of his life’s journey from fanboy to sorcerer’s apprentice to fast hand for hire. The tension between entertainment and crookery that’s built into the business eventually grows into a full-blown dilemma when he meets his childhood idol in Marseille.The idol, a British cardsharp named Kevin who presents himself as a reformed gambler, at first fulfills Guimarães’s teenage fantasies. Kevin seems to be the kind of man who would ply his trade in purple rooms with velour curtains and Venetian landscapes on the wall.The reality, in the form of a rigged high-stakes poker game Kevin invites Guimarães to join, is somewhat seedier. Eventually the younger man has to make a choice between betraying his idol and maintaining what he thought were his values.“I wanted to put some wonder in the world,” he says. Kevin, on the other hand, “wanted to outsmart people for money.”By the time Guimarães finds himself rigging raffles at corporate parties, the bright-line difference between those two worldviews has blurred. We never do learn what choice he made about Kevin, which makes sense theatrically, if not morally or magically. Who creates an illusion but refuses to complete it?To the extent the show’s tricks are meant to illustrate that story, they are effective. Many of the ones Guimarães learned from Kevin or saw him perfect — “second dealing, center dealing, stacking the deck, false shuffling, mucking” — are performed live during “The Future.” Narratively, that’s satisfying.Guimarães displays a hucksterish eagerness, but on Zoom, “pick a card, any card” doesn’t work.Credit…Geffen PlayhouseBut as magic for magic’s sake, the tricks, however brilliant, are baffling, for the very reason they succeed: They’re invisible. That’s especially the case on Zoom, where “pick a card, any card” doesn’t work.It’s less than awe-inspiring, for instance, that Guimarães has to tell us he has completed Kevin’s “cold deck” deception, a holy grail act of prestidigitation in which all 52 cards are secretly switched out for 52 others. On the evidence of our senses, nothing at all has happened except the elaborate setup and the surprising conclusion. I oohed but wasn’t sure what I was oohing at.Guimarães’s hucksterish eagerness, in contrast to his questing thoughtfulness in other contexts, doesn’t help in this one. As a workaround for the Zoom problem, he hammers so hard at the transparency of his deceptions that, like a character in a play, he invites skepticism about them. We know they are tricks; why keep badgering us to say that they aren’t?It’s misdirection, of course, the art of keeping our minds off whatever a magician doesn’t want us to notice. Kevin’s version, during that rigged poker game, was to have a confederate shatter a wineglass; on Zoom, with its lack of real eye contact, the task of distracting the eye is naturally much harder. That’s probably why a ticket to “The Future” includes a collection of props, including a deck of cards, mailed to each audience member in a chic black capsule: misdirection for the pandemic age.So although I admired Guimarães’s skill in “The Future” as much as I had in “The Present,” his previous show for the Geffen, I tired of his more elaborate tricks even faster than I did in the past. And though his storytelling — this time more evocatively realized in Frank Marshall’s direction — was lively, it wasn’t so distracting as to quell my suspicion that it was merely another form of misdirection.This suggests a genre problem. (Or it may just be a me problem; most of the 50 or so participants seemed to have a grand time throughout.) Magic, like ventriloquism, mind-reading, mime and other para-theatrical forms, has long sought greater legitimacy on what used to be called the legitimate stage. Working Vegas like some elephantless variety act is no longer enough for ambitious magicians; they aspire to the condition of drama.I think that’s a mistake. If the choice, as Guimarães expresses it, is between putting some wonder in the world and outsmarting people for money — tickets for “The Future” are $95 — I vote for wonder. I’d rather have some sequins and a rabbit than a three of clubs with a résumé.The FutureThrough March 14; geffenplayhouse.org.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Art of Political Murder’ and CBS Specials

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat’s on TV This Week: ‘The Art of Political Murder’ and CBS SpecialsA documentary about the murder of the Guatemalan bishop Juan José Gerardi debuts on HBO. And two celebrity benefit shows air on CBS.A funeral parade for Bishop Juan José Gerardi, as seen in “The Art of Political Murder.”Credit…HBODec. 14, 2020, 1:00 a.m. ETBetween network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Dec. 14-20. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE SHOT: RACE FOR THE VACCINE — A SPECIAL EDITION OF 20/20 10 p.m. on ABC. The recent rush of news regarding coronavirus vaccines has given some hope to a weary world. The process of getting here hasn’t been easy, to put it mildly, and there’s still an enormous amount of work to do. This special looks at the efforts by scientists and government officials to get a vaccine created and distributed in record speed. Its interview subjects include Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn and one of the chairs of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Covid-19 task force, the Yale professor Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith.TuesdayFrom left, Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby — the Highwomen — in 2019.Credit…Cody O’Loughlin for The New York TimesPLAY ON: CELEBRATING THE POWER OF MUSIC TO MAKE CHANGE 8 p.m. on CBS. A grab bag of musical acts including the Highwomen, Bruce Springsteen, John Legend and Sheryl Crow are set to perform in this benefit concert, which raises money for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the nonprofit WhyHunger. The variety of acts comes with a variety of venues: performances will be filmed at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, the Apollo Theater in New York and the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville.WednesdayTHE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER (2020) 9 p.m. on HBO. This documentary from the British director Paul Taylor (“We Are Together”) investigates the killing of Juan José Gerardi, a Guatemalan bishop who was murdered in April 1998, days after he released results of an investigation into human rights abuses committed during the country’s decades-long civil war. The film is built around interviews with the investigators who worked on the case; it’s based on the book of the same name by Francisco Goldman.MARNIE (1964) 10:15 p.m. on TCM. A year after Tippi Hedren broke out with her debut screen role in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” she acted opposite Sean Connery in this Hitchcock thriller about a bad romance and sexual abuse. (The story was adapted from Winston Graham’s 1961 crime novel of the same name.) Connery was also a rising star: He’d broken out just couple years earlier, in “Dr. No.” Initial reception for “Marnie” was mixed. In his review for The Times, Eugene Archer took issue with most every aspect of it, including Connery and Hedren’s performances (“their inexperience shows”); Hitchcock’s direction (“the timing of key suspense scenes is sadly askew”); the set (“the most glaringly fake cardboard backdrops since Salvador Dalí designed the dream sequences for ‘Spellbound’”); and the script (“reduces this potent material to instant psychiatry — complete with a flashback ‘explanation scene’ harking back to vintage Joan Crawford and enough character exposition to stagger the most dedicated genealogist”). Still, some contemporary critics have been more kind to “Marnie” — including Richard Brody of The New Yorker, who has written that he considers it Hitchcock’s best film.ThursdayDenzel Washington in “The Equalizer 2.”Credit…Glen Wilson/Columbia PicturesTHE EQUALIZER 2 (2018) 5:30 p.m. on FX. The Times’s chief film critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott recently released their list of the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century so far, and they placed Denzel Washington at the very top of the pack. Dargis wrote that Washington makes acting “look like breathing,” adding that he’s “played a lot of characters who embody law or criminality, and some who exist in the space dividing the two.” Washington’s character in “The Equalizer 2” falls into that second category. In the film — the most recent of several high body-count collaborations with the director Antoine Fuqua — Washington plays Robert McCall, a former military officer who gets pulled into vigilantism after a friend and former colleague is killed. In her review for The Times, Dargis wrote that the movie helps solidify Washington’s place in the pantheon of American screen actors like John Wayne, who played violently avenging heroes. “Like so many of the greatest American male stars,” she wrote, “violence becomes him.”THE GENTLEMEN (2020) 8:05 p.m. on Showtime. It takes a very particular kind of director to helm a live-action “Aladdin” for Disney, then follow it up months later with a lavishly brutal crime caper. Guy Ritchie is that kind of director. In “The Gentlemen,” he casts Matthew McConaughey as a pot kingpin whose talk of retirement kicks up a power struggle. McConaughey is surrounded by a slate of other famous performers whose characters are bad actors, in the criminal sense: Hugh Grant, Charlie Hunnam, Jeremy Strong and Colin Farrell.FridaySHREK (2001) 7 p.m. on Syfy. The mostly young voters who participated in the 2002 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards had a difficult call to make: Was it Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz or Eddie Murphy who delivered the very finest vocal performance in “Shrek”? (All three were nominees for the “favorite voice from an animated movie” award, along with Billy Crystal for his role in “Monsters, Inc.”) The honor ultimately went to Murphy. Tune in Friday night to judge whether the kids made the right choice.SaturdayMaya Angelou in “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise.”Credit…Wayne Miller/ARC EntertainmentAMERICAN MASTERS: MAYA ANGELOU: AND STILL I RISE (2016) 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The life of the poet, writer and civil rights activist Maya Angelou — also sometimes a performer, and more — is revisited in this documentary, which explores Angelou’s many talents. The film may be too broad for those already deeply familiar with her work, but newcomers diving into her prolific life will find a wide overview here. “This is a documentary interested in breadth rather than depth,” Ken Jaworowski wrote in his review for The Times, “and on those terms it succeeds.”Sunday22ND ANNUAL A HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 9:30 p.m. on CBS. CBS’s annual foster care adoption benefit show will include several virtual adoption ceremonies this year. As usual, it will also include performances from many celebrities, including Josh Groban, Miranda Lambert, Meghan Trainor, Leslie Odom, Jr. and Andrea Bocelli. Gayle King will host.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More