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      ‘Game Theory’ Host Bomani Jones Calls an Audible

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      “Game Theory,” his HBO talk show, has pulled off the difficult feat of mixing sports and comedy with a political bite. Now he’s trying to up his game by going unscripted.You know Bomani Jones is about to say something funny, deadly serious or both when he spits out a sentence like “The question is simple” or “Let me tell you a secret” or, in this case, “Here’s the thing.”Explaining why he no longer regularly debates sports with people on television, Jones, 42, paused dramatically, his lanky frame swimming in sweatpants as he sat on the sofa of his Harlem apartment. “Don’t no one want to argue with me on television,” he said, a snap in his voice, dropping into a baritone. “Ain’t a whole lot of people going to come out a winner. As a result, I don’t come out a winner. I just come out a bully.”What’s characteristic here is the mix of swagger and self-awareness, and also how quickly he shifted angles when making a point. Jones did it again with his final thought: “You can make an argument that I should let them win now and again,” he said, before another one of those punchy setups: “I’ll be honest.” Pause. “I’m not that good at that.”Bomani Jones has been arguing with sports journalists on ESPN shows like “Around the Horn” and “Highly Questionable” for nearly two decades. “Game Theory With Bomani Jones,” entering its second season on HBO on Friday, is the first time he is sitting at his own desk alone. And while he’s got more than enough charisma and dynamism for the job, the real challenge is pulling off something that, he will be the first to tell you, almost never works: a comic show about sports.“This is something that no one has really figured out,” Jones said, adding that he included himself. Television is full of shows starring clever comedians doing topical jokes and sports journalists making smart points, but a happy marriage of these popular forms is rare.Comedy is hard, smart comedy even harder. But with sports, Jones explained, real fans won’t easily accept a comic with no credentials. “Bill Maher can be a comedian who happened to go to Cornell and be treated with the intellectual gravitas to do the show he does. Sports doesn’t work like that.”He continued, “Comedians love sports, but the ideas they have are typically the same as everybody else’s.” With “Game Theory,” his goal is to use sports to say something deeper, more probing and political. “We’re trying to make a funny show,” Jones said, “but that still has the weight and make points that advance things.”Jones in Season 1 of his HBO show “Game Theory.” The second season won’t be as scripted.HBOThis intellectual ambition distinguished the first season, particularly in his virtuosic desk pieces that were unlike anything else on television. They can remind you of the work of John Oliver, mixing long, intricate, forceful arguments with knowing jokes, and while Jones speaks gushingly about that host (whose offices are right across the hall), it’s a comparison he balks at. Jones is harder to pin down ideologically, and as he pointed out, unlike Oliver, he doesn’t do explainers. Jones aims to jump right into the issue, one his viewers already know, and make them look at it a new way.What Oliver and Jones share though is fierce intelligence and high standards on coming up with a novel perspective. “What I tell my writers is I’m always looking for the zag,” he explained to me, before clarifying that he did not mean a cheap contrarian take.This paid off at the height of crypto mania last year, when everyone from Steph Curry to Tom Brady were spokesmen for digital currency. Jones not only bluntly called it a grift, but also explained how crypto’s popularity in the sports world was tied to the decline in trust in institutions and how normalized gambling on games had become. It was an unusually assured and complicated take that appears prescient.Asked for his favorite segment, Jones pointed to the very first episode, when he commemorated the retirement of Duke’s legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski with a historical deep dive into how and why Black fans hate his teams, quipping that if they played the Ku Klux Klan, “we would have rooted for a zero-zero tie.”Jones, who went to Clark Atlanta University, a historically Black college, said that while he wanted to appeal to all viewers, he paid particular attention to, as he put it, “never boxing Black people out.” If only the white writers in his room laugh at a joke, he won’t use it. But if only the Black ones do, he’ll think about it. “What I mean for that segment of the audience is different,” he said. “When I walk down the street and am stopped, it’s ‘thank you for what you do.’ It’s far more essential there.”Jones, who called this show his dream job, talks as if he’s only now getting the hang of it. He’s supremely confident in his voice, but fitting it into a talk show is tricky. This is the first time he’s used a writing staff that includes veteran joke writers along with a small news department. But he is convinced that he’s at his best and funniest when he sounds as if he’s speaking off the top of his head. “One thing Season 1 didn’t have enough of is just me cooking,” he said.You hear this most clearly on his podcast, “The Right Time,” in which he can find all kinds of unexpected laughs just thinking aloud. Jones has the cadence of a natural comic even when the subject is serious. That’s why in Season 2, “Game Theory” tweaked the format of its topical segment, changing it from a script to bullet points to allow him to riff. “That’s his superpower,” said Stuart Miller, an executive producer of the series who worked on “The Daily Show” for 13 years.Jones’s background in economics means “he doesn’t do pure hot takes,” said Spencer Hall, a former colleague. Brian Karlsson for The New York TimesOn a recent morning in the writers’ room, Miller, home with Covid, stared at a table of staff members from a laptop. On the wall were cards mapping out the season. In the premiere, Jones commemorates LeBron James’s 20th anniversary in the N.B.A. with an argument that the player empowerment movement, which James is widely credited with leading, is a myth. A later episode will make another zag when he makes the case that the N.F.L. is more woke than you think.Jones had a firm command of the room as he ran through a segment with bullet points of big stories that week, testing out the new format. At one point, he reflected on a riff about how a kid who got into a fight with basketball star Ja Morant needed better fathering, saying, “ESPN wouldn’t let me do that. Now I’m on HBO.”In a segment on a video of Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, slapping his wife, Jones adopted a skeptical voice about whether he would face any repercussions. After he finished, one of the writers suggested that the White joke needed to be set up better and offered a tweaked phrase.When he ran through it again, Jones didn’t take this specific advice but found a third way. First, he added a new joke. “Do you realize how insulting it is to get caught slapping your wife and no one is disappointed?” It got a big laugh from the writers. Then with a head of steam, he pulled the brakes. “If you want to hurt the brand,” he said very slowly, pausing after each word, “then he would have to say something bad about incels.”The day before, he met with a performance coach who mentioned the value of adjusting his pace. That informed his shift, but what mattered more was just working without a script. “Part of going to this format is that intuitively I know when to slow up and go faster,” he said. “It’s a feel thing. Once things get written, I struggle a little bit more.”Jones has two master’s degrees, including in economics, which inform his thinking (look at the title of his show). “He doesn’t do pure hot takes,” said Spencer Hall, a sportswriter, podcaster and former colleague. “That’s the economics training: He’ll say, ‘This is bad, but here’s an unexpected upside.’”When it comes to his comedic sensibility, Jones said, nothing was more influential than “Chappelle’s Show,” and explained that what he admired most was how a sketch like “Black Bush” used a simple premise (what if George W. Bush were Black?) to make layered jokes. “Dave is always coding it on many levels,” Jones said. “The joke is landing is so many different ways.”The simplicity is as important as the complexity. “If I find a basic idea that people aren’t thinking about it, that’s it,” he said. “If I need to go a long way to get there, it probably won’t work.”What makes doing political commentary about sports a balancing act is that fans watch games to escape. Jones understands this well, carefully managing the amount of humor in his arguments while trying to avoid dogmatism. “I don’t know how many interesting screeds are left,” he said, making a subtle point about how television has evolved in the last two decades. “Think of how impactful Olbermann’s screeds were in 2006,” he said of the sports broadcaster who shifted into politics. “Do it now and it doesn’t hit the same. You have to be more sophisticated.”That sophistication should not be mistaken for snobbery. Jones’s focus is not on who wins or loses games, but he doesn’t look down on anyone who cares deeply about that. “The place sports exist in people’s lives is important, and we get ourselves in trouble as high-minded commentators when we trivialize that,” he said. “No one would say music isn’t important. It’s a big part of the fabric of our lives. It matters. Sports is the same.” More

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      ‘The Last of Us’ Creators on Turning Video Games Into TV

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      Hollywood has mostly failed to adapt successful video games into satisfying series and films. In an interview, the creators of this new zombie thriller explain why it can be the exception.When “The Last of Us” came out in 2013, the hit video game’s premise — a fungus turns people into zombies, leaving society in shambles, and what government remains is controlled by fascists — seemed squarely in the realm of fiction. A decade later, an HBO series based on the game is set to be released, on Sunday, to a public that has grown all too familiar with the possibility of a germ apocalypse.The reality of what the world has been through over the past three years is alluded to in a chilling opening scene in which a pair of scientists describe the risk of various pathogens to a talk show audience. After one of them describes something like Covid-19, the other silences both the fictional crowd and us when he expounds upon the ways in which a warmed-up planet could lead to something much, much worse.“Part of writing for an audience is just feeling in your bones what is cultural knowledge,” said Craig Mazin, one of the showrunners. “On the other hand, it’s not a show about the pandemic — it’s about what it means to survive and what’s the purpose of survival. So we get that out of the way pretty quickly.”Over the past decade, as video games have become more vivid and complex, developers have used the medium to spin rich, character-based stories that rival film and TV in quality. “The Last of Us,” for instance, is less about the actual outbreak than the father-daughter relationship between a smuggler named Joel (played by Pedro Pascal in the series) and a 14-year-old girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey). Their journey across the United States, past zombies and cannibals, raises questions about the limits of love and the atrocities a parent will commit in the name of protecting a child.Acclaimed for its narrative depth, “The Last of Us,” the game, follows a smuggler named Joel and a girl named Ellie across a post-apocalyptic America.Sony Interactive EntertainmentBut while a handful of game-to-screen adaptations like the “Tomb Raider,” “Resident Evil” and “Sonic the Hedgehog” franchises have made enough money to warrant sequels, there is a sense that unlike, say, comic books, the stories in video games have never been properly translated.“A lot of them have been embarrassing,” said Neil Druckmann, who led the creation of “The Last of Us” and its 2020 sequel, “The Last of Us Part II,” and created the HBO show with Mazin. (Druckmann is also a showrunner.)For Hollywood that means a gold mine of intellectual property with a built-in audience of gamers has gone mostly unexploited. Given the pedigree of the creators — Mazin created “Chernobyl,” the Emmy-award winning mini-series, while Druckmann and his studio, Naughty Dog, are considered the benchmarks for narrative storytelling in games — fans are hoping “The Last of Us” will be different. Either way, viewers should prepare to see more games onscreen soon: Other popular video game franchises with film and TV adaptations in the works include “Twisted Metal,” “Ghost of Tsushima” and “Assassin’s Creed.”In a joint video interview late last month, Mazin and Druckmann discussed “The Last of Us,” what they changed from the game and what they didn’t, and why their philosophy for adaptation was to cut away much of the action in order to make the post-apocalyptic world feel more real. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Inside the Dystopian World of ‘The Last of Us’The post-apocalyptic video game that inspired the TV series “The Last of Us” won over players with its photorealistic animation and a morally complex story.Game Review: “I found it hard to get past what it embraces with a depressing sameness, particularly its handling of its female characters,” our critic wrote of “The Last of Us” in 2013.‘Left Behind’: “The Last of Us: Left Behind,” a prologue designed to be played in a single sitting, was an unexpected hit in 2014.2020 Sequel: “The Last of Us Part II,” a tale of entrenched tribalism in a world undone by a pandemic, took a darker and unpredictable tone that left critics in awe.Playing the Game: Two Times reporters spent weeks playing the sequel in the run-up to its release. These were their first impressions.The “Last of Us” games are about a global pandemic in which the cordyceps fungus, a real-life fungus that can take over the bodies and minds of insects, jumps to humans and turns people into zombies. Suddenly that premise feels a lot less fantastical.CRAIG MAZIN Neil made the smart decision all these years ago to say, you know what, instead of some invented no-name zombie virus, or rage serum, or some supernatural hell-has-fallen-and-the-dead-will-walk-the-earth —NEIL DRUCKMANN Radiation!MAZIN Yeah, radiation, which is just an outrage. Instead of all that, why don’t we go find something that’s real? And he did. I mean, that’s what cordyceps does to ants. I love the science of it.“I believe that most fans are going to react positively to it, because we made it with love,” said Craig Mazin, right, on set with Lamar Johnson. “But if people don’t, I get that too.”Liane Hentscher/HBODRUCKMANN Part of the game’s success was that we try to treat it as grounded as possible. And with the show we’re able to take that philosophy even further. So I think why the pandemic [in the games] feels so real, even though it was written before our current pandemic, is we were looking at things like Katrina. Like here’s where government fails, here’s where people can get really selfish, and here’s where we can see these great acts of love.In the games, the outbreak takes place in 2013, whereas in the show it’s 2003. Given that most of the story takes place 20 years later, after the world falls apart, I’m guessing the idea was to place the show in the present day?MAZIN I have this thing about watching shows where a graphic comes up and says, “2053: London.” And I’m like, “I don’t know what 2053 is.” The notion that there’s this twist of fate, and 2023, instead of looking like this, it looks like this — there’s an immediacy to that. I probably inflated its importance in my mind, but it helped me.Gamers are generally of the opinion that game adaptations are pretty horrible. You both seem to agree, and I’m wondering why you think they’ve been such a failure.MAZIN There’s a lot of cringe out there.DRUCKMANN Sometimes the source material is just not strong enough for a direct adaptation. So all you’re left with is a name that has some value to it, but really you’re starting from scratch. Other times it’s that the people in charge are not gamers. They don’t understand what made this thing special. They hang on to really superficial things and they think, for example, plenty of players want to see that one gameplay moment or this one gun from the game.MAZIN Terrific video games are terrific because of their gameplay, but conceptually they may already be copies of something. A copy of “Aliens.” A copy of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” You adapt that and you have a copy of a copy and can just feel a lack of freshness to it.Bella Ramsey, left and Anna Torv in “The Last of Us.”Liane Hentscher/HBOSo what did you try to do differently?DRUCKMANN The most important thing was to keep the soul of it, what it’s about: these relationships. What makes the show are the characters, the philosophical arguments of, “Do the ends justify the means?” And, “How big is your tribe that you’re going to care for?”The least important part was the gameplay. In the game we have long action sequences to get you into a flow state, which gets you to better connect with the character — you see yourself as that character. But if you just try to throw that on the screen in the passive medium, it’s not going to work. And that’s the thing that people often get wrong. The conversation with Craig and with HBO, the encouragement, which I loved, was, “Don’t focus on the action.”Given how many failures there have been, at least creatively, why do you think the appetite for game to TV or movie adaptations is suddenly so large?MAZIN There’s two possible reasons, one good and one not so good. The video game industry has been putting out some remarkable work. It seems natural that once these games achieve this impressive narrative space, you can start to think about porting them over. That’s the good reason.Here’s the bad reason: Somebody in a room who doesn’t know anything about playing video games looks at a PDF of how many copies are sold, and they go, “Well, let’s just do that. We need the title and the character, and the character should look like the guy in the game, and then, whatever, we’ll hire some people.”What are some of the differences in how you build a character for an interactive medium versus a passive one?DRUCKMANN With a game, there are certain constraints. Joel [the game’s main playable character] needs to be capable enough to mirror what you’re doing in the game. So, for example, he’s crouching and he’s killing. If all of a sudden we had a scene where he’s complaining about his knees, then there’s this disconnect. The Joel in the show, because you don’t have to support him crouch-walking or having to fight all these people, there was this idea of, “What if we explore his age and how broken down he is over the years?” Physically, he becomes a different person that’s more realistic than what we could have done in the game.When translating the game into a TV narrative, “the least important part was the gameplay,” Druckmann said.Sony Interactive EntertainmentMAZIN There are parts of games that, because of their design, have to violate reality. In “The Last of Us” — or really any game where you’re playing somebody that has guns, and you’re fighting against other people that have guns — you’re going to get shot. And then you’re going to heal yourself with a bandage, some pills, power-ups, whatever. So exploring the fragility of the body is part of how we honor this different medium. A single gunshot, if it’s not fatal, can permanently damage you as a human being. There is no bandage for this.Are you anxious about how fans of the game will react to changes?MAZIN My job was to be connected with my own fandom and to think about myself as representative of a lot of people, and to ask what would be important to me, what would hurt if it weren’t in the show. I believe that most fans are going to react positively to it, because we made it with love. But if people don’t, I get that too. It’s part of being deeply connected to something.DRUCKMANN My fear, and this just gets into a general conversation around fandom, is that our cast or anybody from our crew will get attacked or insulted as we make certain changes. After “The Last of Us II,” nothing anybody says online can get to me anymore. But I hate when anybody else gets it.You’re referring to the online harassment, including death threats, surrounding, among other things, the gender and sexuality of certain characters in the “Last of Us” games, which is also explored in the show.DRUCKMANN I’ve learned to just accept it and not to give it too much weight. I tend to not be driven by fear. If anything, I lean the opposite. When there’s a certain backlash to an idea, I’m like, then it’s an idea worth exploring.As a fan of the games, I found myself having a kind of reverse uncanny valley type reaction to Ellie in the show, where I was like, “But that’s not Ellie.” It made me realize how deeply I’ve connected to the game version of Ellie, who is voiced by Ashley Johnson but is a digital character. Unlike a live actress, who you realize is a person and might see in other things, you don’t see Ellie anywhere else, so she almost seems to belong to the story.MAZIN What I said to Bella is, people are going to probably have a reaction to you, not unlike Joel’s reaction, which is: “Who is this? This isn’t my daughter. This isn’t the person I love. The person I love looks like this and acts like this, and you’re not it … but I guess I’m stuck with you for a bit.”And then: “Well, you’re kind of growing on me … Actually, I think you’re pretty great … You know what? I would kill anyone to protect you.”That’s kind of how it works with Joel and Ellie, and that’s kind of how I think it’s going to work with the part of the audience that, like you and like me, has such an attachment to the Ellie that Neil and Ashley created in the game. That’s what Bella does magically. Bella does not beg for your approval — I’m talking about her Ellie — she just is that character and you, like Joel, are falling in love with her. More

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      Why Did It Take HBO So Long to Make Shows About Women?

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      An early top executive at the network believed that “the man of the house” paid for cable TV subscriptions. That mind-set affected HBO’s programming for decades.On “House of the Dragon,” Emma D’Arcy plays a would-be queen who is weighing what to do in the face of betrayal. On “Euphoria,” Zendaya plays a high school student who starts using drugs shortly after leaving rehab. On “The White Lotus,” which returns for its second season on Sunday night, Jennifer Coolidge plays a dazed heiress trying to escape her troubles in the comforts of a Sicilian luxury hotel.These characters are the new faces of HBO, the Emmy-magnet cable network that, until recently, specialized in making programs about men for men. In fits and starts over the last two decades, the network has at last begun to move away from the leering lotharios of its early years and the tortured male antiheroes of its middle period to present shows built around complicated women who drive the action.In the 1980s, when HBO was just starting to make original programming, its top executives made a point of appealing to male viewers. It was a strategy that affected the network’s creative output for years to come.Jennifer Coolidge, center, in a scene from Season 2 of “The White Lotus.” Fabio Lovino/HBOEmma D’Arcy, right, with Olivia Cooke in HBO’s latest ratings hit, “House of the Dragon.”Ollie Upton/HBO“I’ve figured out through research, and in my own mind, that the man of the house decided whether to have HBO or not,” said Michael Fuchs, the channel’s top executive when it started to concentrate on original programming, in a 2010 interview with the Television Academy.“I made sure that there were things for men,” he continued. “If commercial television had a female slant, HBO had a male slant.”The network bet big on stand-up comedy specials featuring mostly male comics in the years when it was defining the look and feel of premium cable. Without the restrictions of broadcast TV, George Carlin, Chris Rock and Robin Williams were free to do their routines unfettered.In the 1980s, the network cemented its identity as one that appealed to men when it signed the heavyweight champion Mike Tyson to an exclusive deal. At the same time, HBO started airing the documentary series “Eros America,” which was soon renamed “Real Sex.” It kicked off a run of sex-focused documentary shows, which would include “G String Divas,” “Cathouse” and “Sex Bytes.”HBO’s early forays into scripted programming followed a similar tack. John Landis, an executive producer of “Dream On,” a comedy about a male book editor that made its debut in 1990, used the show’s gratuitous nudity as a selling point. “We have breasts in the script just for the sake of seeing breasts,” he said in a 1992 interview. “Excuse me, but what’s so bad about that?”Susie Fitzgerald, an HBO programming executive from 1984 to 1995, said “Dream On” appealed to her bosses because it was cheap to make and “it featured nudity — female nudity, of course.” She recalled HBO’s research executives preaching that men “controlled the remote.” That line of thinking became a factor in programming decisions, she added.Return to Westeros in ‘House of the Dragon’HBO’s long-awaited “Game of Thrones” prequel series is here.Playing Kingmaker: Fabien Frankel plays Ser Criston Cole, who got to place the crown on the new King of Westeros’s head. He is still not sure how he landed the role.The Princess and the Queen: Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, who portray the grown-up versions of Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, talked about the forces that drive their characters apart — and pull them together.A Man’s Decline: By the eighth episode of the season, Viserys no longer looks like a proud Targaryen king. The actor Paddy Considine discussed the character’s transformation and its meaning.A Rogue Prince: Daemon Targaryen is an agent of chaos. But “he’s got a strange moral compass of his own,” Matt Smith, who portrays him, said.Ms. Fitzgerald, who helped oversee HBO comedy specials starring Ellen DeGeneres, Roseanne Barr and Whoopi Goldberg, was part of the team behind the network’s first series to win widespread acclaim, “The Larry Sanders Show,” about an insecure talk-show host and cocreated by and starring Garry Shandling. Around the time of its debut, Ms. Fitzgerald said she floated the idea that a woman should be the lead of an HBO comedy series. She faced resistance when she brought it up, she said.The beginning of the shift toward productions centered on women did not come about until 1996, with the premiere of “If These Walls Could Talk,” a movie chronicling abortion in three different decades. It was produced by Demi Moore, who also had a leading role in the film.HBO didn’t give the green light to “If These Walls Could Talk” in the hope that it would attract large numbers of viewers and subscribers. The network’s main interest was in doing business with Ms. Moore, who was then at the height of her fame.“If These Walls Could Talk” did have something in common with HBO’s other productions, though: It had a strong point of view — fiercely in favor of abortion — and it was not a fit for broadcast TV or basic cable, which made money by keeping skittish advertisers happy.When the ratings came in, the executives were floored: “If These Walls Could Talk” had attracted the largest audience ever for an HBO production, contradicting its “man-of-the-house” programming strategy.Shortly afterward, HBO bought the option for “Sex and the City,” a book by Candace Bushnell on the lives of single women in Manhattan. The series ran from 1998 to 2004, becoming a cultural touchstone and winning 7 Emmys (out of 54 nominations). It also spawned two feature films, a popular sequel series, “And Just Like That,” for HBO’s streaming service, HBO Max, and countless memes.Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw in the long-running HBO series “Sex and the City.”HBO, via Everett CollectionBut just as “Sex and the City” was in the middle of its run, HBO went back to the old playbook, adding “The Mind of the Married Man” to its prime-time schedule. The half-hour series was centered on a married Chicago newspaperman, his married pals and their sex lives. Writing in Entertainment Weekly, the critic Ken Tucker called the show a “rancid little barf-com” and found fault with its “moronic sexism.” And soon after 10 million viewers tuned in for the “Sex and the City” finale, HBO returned to a bro-y sensibility with “Entourage,” about young men on the loose in Hollywood.When Casey Bloys, the current head of programming at HBO, joined the network in 2004, its audience was still largely male, thanks to a cluster of shows — “Oz,” “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” — that chronicled the exploits of male antiheroes and outlaws.“There was definitely a core male 25- to 54-year-old audience,” Mr. Bloys said.Some HBO series appealed to women — Alan Ball’s “True Blood” and Michael Patrick King’s and Lisa Kudrow’s “The Comeback” — but old habits were hard to shake.In 2010, Mr. Bloys and his colleagues in the programming department were impressed by a proposal from a 23-year-old writer and filmmaker, Lena Dunham, for a series about young women in New York. Other executives were against it, partly because of the age of Ms. Dunham’s central characters, who were more than a decade younger than the “Sex and the City” foursome.“The prevailing wisdom of the time was that men basically subscribed,” Mr. Bloys said. “So in conversations around ‘Girls,’ they said we had never done a show with that young a lead and a female lead that young. The idea was young adults were not deciding to subscribe to HBO because they weren’t the head of the household.”After Mr. Bloys and his associates prevailed, “Girls” became a critical hit and fodder for thousands of think pieces. “Veep,” starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a U.S. vice president, was right around the corner.Even so, shows about men remained HBO’s stock in trade, along with certain tropes that had devolved into cliché. In a 2011 essay, “HBO, you’re busted,” Mary McNamara, a critic for The Los Angeles Times, blasted the network for its overreliance on scenes set in strip clubs and brothels.Must every HBO drama, Ms. McNamara lamented, feature shadowy men conducting business against a backdrop of unclad women? She cited “The Sopranos,” “Game of Thrones,” “Rome,” “Deadwood” and “Boardwalk Empire” as the biggest offenders, noting that “HBO has a higher population of prostitutes per capita than Amsterdam or Charlie Sheen’s Christmas card list.”The cast of “The Mind of the Married Man,” a critical flop.Anthony Friedkin/HBOJames Gandolfini as the HBO antihero Tony Soprano.Anthony Neste/Getty ImagesBy the time Mr. Bloys took over the programming department in 2016, 57 percent of viewers of HBO’s Sunday prime-time lineup were male, according to Nielsen. As Mr. Bloys settled into his new role, the network began a reboot of the cultural shift it had attempted two decades earlier with “If These Walls Could Talk” and “Sex and the City.”“My philosophy as a programmer was, if you’ve got a male core, that’s great,” Mr. Bloys said. “You do want to make sure you’re tending to that core audience, but you also have to broaden out from that. You can do both.”As the #MeToo movement ousted men in positions of power in the media industry, the signature HBO protagonist began to change. There were still shows centered on tortured male antiheroes — “Succession,” for one — but more and more, a new character came to the fore: the tough but flawed heroine who is looking to right past wrongs.“Big Little Lies,” starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, chronicled a group of women in Monterey, Calif., who band together after one of their husbands, an abuser, is murdered. In “Sharp Objects,” Amy Adams played a self-harming newspaper reporter who investigates the murders of two girls in her Missouri hometown. In “Mare of Easttown,” Kate Winslet immersed herself in the role of a damaged police detective working to solve the murder of a teenage mother in blue-collar Pennsylvania. “I May Destroy You,” a coproduction with the BBC, starred Michaela Coel as a struggling writer who attempts to shed light on her own past rape.Michaela Coel was the star, writer and producer of “I May Destroy You.”HBO, via Associated PressMs. Coel was the creative force behind “I May Destroy You.” Another female writer-producer, Marti Noxon, was the creator of “Sharp Objects,” a limited series based on the novel by Gillian Flynn. But several other HBO shows with female protagonists were led by men: David E. Kelley was the showrunner of “Big Little Lies”; Brad Inglesby created “Mare of Easttown”; and Saverio Costanzo was the creator of HBO’s adaptation of “My Brilliant Friend,” a show adapted from the Neapolitan novels series by Elena Ferrante.HBO reapplied the lesson it had learned from “Girls” when it signed off on “Euphoria,” a series about the drug-fueled escapades of teenagers created by Sam Levinson, with Zendaya in a starring role. Earlier this year, that show became the most-watched HBO program since the network’s biggest hit, “Game of Thrones.”The results of the shift have been evident in the makeup of the audience for HBO, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in November, and the streaming platform that shares its name. According to Nielsen, those watching the cable channel had a 50-50 male-female split in 2021, and 52 percent of HBO Max’s viewers in September were women.“I think that any brand — this is not specific to television — has to evolve,” Mr. Bloys said. “You can’t just kind of become comfortable and think, ‘Well, we know how to do one thing and let’s keep doing it.’” More

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      Cop TV Shows: A Brief History of the Police Procedural

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      The genre dates back to the dawn of television, but it has evolved over the years.Scripted television is all but unimaginable without the soothingly formulaic, reliably satisfying police procedural. But the genre has evolved with the medium, becoming grittier, more realistic and more sophisticated — up to a point. In the same way some argue that all war movies are pro-war movies, critics maintain that cop shows inescapably glorify police officers and denigrate perpetrators.Here’s a look at several important cop shows and how the genre has changed over the decades.‘Dragnet’ (debuted in 1951)Adapted from a radio program by its creator and star, Jack Webb, “Dragnet” was one of the most popular cop shows ever, rising as high as No. 2 in the ratings behind “I Love Lucy.”“Dragnet” set the genre’s resilient template: Each episode featured a new crime for the detective partners to solve. Made in extensive consultation with the real-life Los Angeles Police Department (which provided a steady supply of authentic cases on which to base episodes), it also introduced the trend of what critics characterize as an overly deferential view toward law enforcement.‘Hill Street Blues’ (1981)After “Dragnet,” popular cop shows like “Kojak,” “Columbo” and “Cagney & Lacey” injected additional personality into its crime solvers, according to the book “Cop Shows.” But it was “Hill Street Blues” that successfully depicted the sour tones of the job and the toll it could take on officers.Its critical acclaim, including five Emmys for outstanding drama, ensured its influence over the next generation of police procedurals. “With its serial structure, ensemble cast of characters, willingness to be dark and have the characters be unlikable on some level, it was a real stretch from ‘Dragnet,’” said Jonathan Nichols-Pethick, a professor of media studies at DePauw University.‘N.Y.P.D. Blue’ (1993)Along with “N.Y.P.D. Blue,” which brought the profession’s R-rated language and themes to the screen, “Law & Order” and “Homicide: Life on the Street” helped pave the way for the prestige television boom. Each show was brought to network television in the early 1990s with the help of “Hill Street Blues” alumni, building on that show’s realism and sense of place.“Law & Order” has lasted 22 seasons and spawned no fewer than eight spinoffs, while “Homicide: Life on the Street” used vérité-style camerawork to plumb race relations in Baltimore. “N.Y.P.D. Blue” tracked Detective Andy Sipowicz’s evolution to more enlightened racial views over a dozen seasons.The commitment to realism had a range of implications. Bill Clark, a former New York City detective who was a producer on “N.Y.P.D. Blue,” said melodramatic story lines were not always reflective of regular policing methods.“One of the things I was always offended by in other cop shows was in an interrogation room where cops beat the crap out of the guy,” he said.‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’ (2000)The innovation that “CSI” provided the cop show was technology, with its investigators using the latest in forensic know-how to crack Las Vegas’s hard cases. In other ways, though, “CSI” was a throwback, relying heavily on the procedural structure that dates back to “Dragnet.”It worked: “CSI” was a top 10 show in each of its first nine seasons, peaking at No. 1. It resulted not only in three direct spinoffs but even more copycats.Some have theorized that the show also generated a “CSI Effect,” in which real-life jurors unrealistically expect compelling forensic evidence.‘The Wire’ (2002)There had never been a crime show quite like “The Wire.”It not only depicted problems with the aims and methods of policing, but at times placed the blame on fundamentally corrupted systems and initiatives like the war on drugs.The critically acclaimed show was created for HBO by Ed Burns, a former Baltimore homicide detective, and David Simon, a former Baltimore Sun reporter who had written for “Homicide: Life on the Street,” a series that was based on his 1991 book.The crime novelist George Pelecanos, who wrote for “The Wire,” said Simon’s pitch was not “a thought-provoking look at the issues in the inner city,” but a show about cops and drug dealers. But, Pelecanos added, “I knew where his heart was. This wasn’t going to be the usual thing where bad guys are pursued and caught.”‘East New York’ (2022)“East New York,” which debuted on CBS on Sunday, follows in the tradition of the police procedural. But its producers are hoping to highlight underemphasized aspects of policing, such as officers building relationships with the community.“Catching bad guys is what cops did in the days of ‘Dragnet,’ and it’s what they still do,” said William Finkelstein, a creator of “East New York” and a veteran of “Law & Order” and “N.Y.P.D. Blue.” “But how do they do it? And what’s their relationship to the people they’re policing?” More

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      ‘The White Lotus’ Wins 5 Emmy Awards

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      “The White Lotus,” the hit HBO anthology series that, during a season of pandemic travel restrictions, skewered the entitled behavior of wealthy vacationers, scooped up five Primetime Emmys on Monday, including the award for best TV movie, limited or anthology series.Created by Mike White, the series struck a chord with its timely and incisive satire of privilege and liberal hypocrisy at a Hawaiian resort, and it was highly favored to take home the best limited series award, after receiving 20 nominations overall. In winning, “The White Lotus” beat a field of similarly buzzy, topical series in a category that has become one of TV’s most hotly contested, including Hulu’s “Dopesick,” about the opioid crisis, and Netflix’s “Inventing Anna,” about the socialite scam artist Anna Sorokin.The series also scored wins in major acting categories. Jennifer Coolidge, who plays a grieving hotel guest desperate for love, won best supporting actress, beating four of her co-stars in the category, including Connie Britton, Alexandra Daddario, Natasha Rothwell and Sydney Sweeney. Murray Bartlett, who plays a meticulous resort manager, won best supporting actor, beating out his co-stars Jake Lacy and Steve Zahn.Mike White, who wrote and directed all six episodes of Season 1, picked up back-to-back Emmys for writing and directing. He compared his writing win to increasing his threat level on the competition show “Survivor,” on which he was once a contestant.“I just want to stay in the game,” White said. “Awards are great, I love writing, I love doing what I do. Don’t come for me. Don’t vote me off the island, please.”“White Lotus” also earned five Creative Arts Emmys, which were presented on Labor Day weekend, in categories including music composition, casting and camera editing.Season 2 of “White Lotus” is set to debut in October with a new self-contained plot, set in Sicily, and an almost entirely new cast that includes Tom Hollander, Theo James and Aubrey Plaza. Coolidge will be the only returning cast member, reprising her role as Tanya.Coolidge’s return raised questions about whether “White Lotus” should be competing in the TV movie, anthology or limited series category. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which awards the Emmys, decided in March that having a single returning character did not disqualify a series from eligibility. More

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      Fantasy Face-Off: ‘The Rings of Power’ vs. ‘House of the Dragon’

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      Which has the better dragons? Which has the better swords? Now that we’ve seen a few episodes of each, here’s an early comparison.Comparisons between HBO’s “House of the Dragon” and Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” — both new epic fantasies, both prequel series, both with huge budgets and ready-made fan bases — were probably inevitable. And indeed the internet has already been more than happy to oblige.But should we compare them? Possibly not.The “Thrones” author, George R.R. Martin — whose work was heavily influenced by the original “Rings” author, J.R.R. Tolkien — wants only peace in the realm. “It’s not a death match or anything,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “We don’t have to be bracketed together.”Still, few seem able to resist the urge. And what are we made of, Valyrian stone?Instead of comparing industry stats, though — ratings, budgets, and so on — let’s look at where the two shows overlap. Which one has the coolest swords? The best dragons? The most formidable heroine? Granted, initial observations are based on only the first few episodes (three so far for “Dragon”; two for “Rings,” which premiered on Thursday). But we’ve seen enough to get the discussion started. (Some spoilers lie ahead.)Pop culture cred  It’s not entirely fair to compare J.R.R. Tolkien to George R.R. Martin, who is often referred to as “the American Tolkien.” The two authors are not in competition. Martin takes inspiration from much of what Tolkien did, especially in the areas of magic and world-building; but he has also expanded on Tolkien’s achievements. Tolkien has sold more books than Martin (they’ve both sold tens of millions), but Tolkien’s have been around much longer.A better comparison might be the previous adaptations of their work: HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” to which “Dragon” is a prequel, versus Peter Jackson’s film versions of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit.”It could be said that the early seasons of “Game of Thrones” were in some ways comparable to the first three (and much-loved) Jackson films, while the derided later seasons of “Thrones” resembled more the polarizing “Hobbit” movies. Each series got off to a great start, but each tested viewers’ patience. Tolkien fans are already finding things to gripe about with the new series, but they’ve have had much more time to get over the “Hobbit” movies. If the monster ratings seen thus far for “Dragon” are any indication, “Thrones” fans seem prepared to forgive (if not forget) for now. But it’s still early, fan reaction to the end of “Thrones” was truly bitter, and the franchise still has a lot of ground to make up.Edge: “The Rings of Power” Heroes As prequels go, “Rings of Power” has another advantage because some of its characters are immortal. The trick, of course, is that new actors have to measure up to those playing previous incarnations, some of whom were widely beloved. Morfydd Clark, as an adventurous young Galadriel in “Rings” (played by Cate Blanchett in the movies) manages this quite nicely.“Dragon” might have taken a similar route if the showrunners had been willing to revisit such long-living “Thrones” characters as Melisandre (Carice van Houten) or the Children of the Forest. But that would have required wedging those characters into the story in places where they didn’t really fit.Instead, “Dragon” implicitly asks viewers to identify Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) with Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) and therefore support her claim for the throne. As causes go, that’s not as noble as Galadriel’s quest to extinguish the ultimate evil, or even Dany’s early fight against oppression. Rhaenyra wants only her birthright; and perhaps there’s something heroic in fighting the patriarchy to get it, but so far she’s no Galadriel, even if the blonde wigs make the Targaryens resemble elves.Edge: “The Rings of Power” Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), wielder of Dark Sister, in “House of the Dragon.”HBOSwords’Tis said the sword makes the man — or the woman, or the elf. And sometimes a legendary sword can do more to fuel fear and awe than the individual wielding it.In “The Rings of Power,” we will presumably get to see some of these storied blades — the sword of Isildur (Maxim Baldry), for example, which is known as Narsil and is weighted with destiny. Meanwhile, what about the broken black hilt that Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) secretly keeps? It’s a weapon that seems capable of reforging itself and of drinking in blood as well. It resembles the sword Anglachel, also called Gurthang, and that’s not a good thing.In “House of the Dragon,” we’re in a Golden Age of legendary Valyrian weaponry. King Viserys (Paddy Considine) grips the mighty sword of kings, Blackfyre, when he wants to exert authority, and he holds a familiar dagger when he wants to impart prophecy. (Given the special properties of that dagger’s Valyrian steel, it also has destiny written all over it.) Daemon (Matt Smith), meanwhile, uses the slimmer Dark Sister to cut his way to glory.Then there’s the Iron Throne, which is made of countless swords and could easily bring down a king with a well-placed nick. Legend has it that this is the way the throne “rejects” those not fit to rule.  A parallel to Valyrian steel in Tolkien’s world is mithril, the rare and precious metal found only in Khazad-dûm and Númenor — both places visited in “Rings of Power.” Mithril is said to be stronger than steel but also lighter — which raises the obvious question: Why has no one thought to make a mithril sword?    Edge: “House of the Dragon” Magic treesIn the beginning — in “The Rings of Power,” at least — there were the Two Trees of Valinor, growing side by side in a mingled glow, until the Dark Lord Morgoth poisoned them. Then, making things worse, Morgoth stole the Silmarils, three jewels containing the unsullied light of those two now-vanished trees. We have also learned that a gift of a sapling continues to blossom even in the deep underground of Khazad-dûm. How? Love? Magic? (Is there a difference?) There are other significant trees, as well, some of them symbolizing the friendship between different species. (Look for one of these if we go to Númenor’s capital.)So far, the white weirwoods in “House of the Dragon” are little more than a backdrop, a source of soothing shade in the godswood. But it seems likely that these trees are being utilized by someone as some kind of Westerosi surveillance system. (We know there has been a series of Three-Eyed Ravens and greenseers keeping watch.) We probably won’t learn much about that in this season.Edge: “The Rings of Power”DragonsDragons are the ultimate weapons of war. In the prologue to “The Rings of Power,” we see the evil Morgoth make pioneering use of the winged beasts in battle.One of his mounts appears to be Ancalagon the Black, an obvious model for another familiar behemoth, Balerion the Black Dread, whose preserved skull is an object of reverence in “House of the Dragon.” Tolkien’s dragons are not pets; taking them out for joy rides would be inadvisable. And they’ll have a more serious role to play in the story once the dwarves get their power jewelry.But to settle the core issue between the two franchises, which dragons are better? We know from the loquacious Smaug, in the 2013 movie “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” that Tolkien’s dragons are sentient and thoughtful. One on one, they have serious intellectual assets; but as a group, their meager numbers in Middle-earth during this Second Age are no match for the fire-breathing horde in “House of the Dragon.”Rhaenyra’s Syrax and Daemon’s Caraxes are just the first of those beasts to be introduced on the show — there’s a whole dragonpit more of them we still haven’t seen.  Edge: “House of the Dragon” Invented languagesGiven that Tolkien was an actual linguist who created his own Elvish language (Quenya, it’s called), “The Rings of Power” starts off with a distinct advantage over “House of the Dragon” in this category.In the “The Rings of Power,” Owain Arthur plays Prince Durin, who leads a clan of dwarves.Amazon Studios, via Associated PressMartin (for the books) and the language creator David J. Peterson (for “Dragon”) made valiant effort to achieve something close to what Tolkien did, most notably with High Valyrian, the mother tongue of the Targaryen rulers. If we were to judge each show solely by the artistry of its languages, Tolkien’s Quenya would surely win.But “Rings of Power” squanders that advantage by barely using Quenya when the elves speak to one another, or Khuzdul among the dwarves, at least in the first two episodes. We hear Elrond (Robert Aramayo) mutter a few words of Elvish to himself when he is writing something, but he switches to the common tongue seconds later.By contrast, “House of the Dragon” uses High Valyrian to establish a relationship between a Targaryen uncle and niece, and the actors speak it so fluently that the bond feels real.Edge: “House of the Dragon”Language, periodBoth shows are based on pre-existing material. For “House of the Dragon,” it is Martin’s imaginary history, the book “Fire & Blood.” For “The Rings of Power,” it is mostly appendices to “The Lord of the Rings,” which are essentially story outlines.Both shows have had to invent quite a bit in order to fill narrative gaps, and here “House of the Dragon” benefits from Martin’s direct involvement as one of the show’s creators. Also, the “House of the Dragon” writers seem much more aware of how to use lines and scenes to stir watercooler discussion and to crank up the old “Thrones” meme factory again. Rhaenyra’s “I never jest about cake” was a bit strained, but people are still talking about the C-section murder from Episode 1.“The Rings of Power,” so far, is not putting meat back on the menu, boys — and it’s not serving second breakfast, either. But we know Daemon Targaryen will always give us the GIFs.Edge: “House of the Dragon” More

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      ‘House of the Dragon’: Who Is Otto Hightower, and Why Does He Matter?

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      The King’s Hand in “Dragon” belongs to House Hightower, a minor presence in “Game of Thrones” but a major player in the prequel. Here’s some background.It’s tempting to read the new characters in HBO’s “House of the Dragon” through a “Game of Thrones” lens, to see the dragon-riding princess Rhaenyra (played as a youth by Milly Alcock) as the new Daenerys (Emilia Clarke). Other parallels between the two shows exist as well, though they are perhaps less obvious.Take the Hightowers, a minor presence in “Thrones”; based on the Sunday series premiere of “Dragon,” set nearly 200 years earlier, the family was clearly once a major player in Westeros’s innermost sanctums of power. Could they be our new Lannisters?There’s a lot we can glean already from the first episode of “Dragon,” from “Thrones” and from the books by George R.R. Martin without spoiling the new series. Let’s take a deeper look.Who are the Hightowers again?Although House Hightower may not feel familiar, we’re already passingly acquainted with this ancient noble family: In “Thrones,” one of the Kingsguard during Bran Stark’s Tower of Joy flashback was Ser Gerold Hightower (Eddie Eyre), and two of the Tyrells, Margaery (Natalie Dormer) and Loras (Finn Jones), shared a Hightower mother.Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) resembles Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) in many respects. Like Tywin, he is a widower Hand of the King, and just as Tywin used his daughter, Cersei (Lena Headey), Otto is using his daughter, Alicent (played as a youth by Emily Carey), as king bait.Return to Westeros in ‘House of the Dragon’HBO’s long-awaited “Game of Thrones” prequel series is here.The Sea Snake: Lord Corlys Velaryon, one of the most powerful people in the Seven Kingdoms, is a fearless sailor. Steve Toussaint, the actor who plays him, does better on land.A Rogue Prince: Daemon Targaryen, portrayed by Matt Smith, is an agent of chaos. But “he’s got a strange moral compass of his own,” the actor said.The New King: A string of critically acclaimed roles has lifted Paddy Considine, who stars as King Viserys Targaryen, from hardscrabble roots to a seat on the Iron Throne.The King’s Hand: Otto Hightower is a major player in the prequel. Here is what to know about the character and the history of House Hightower.But the uptight, opportunistic Otto is more powerful than Tywin ever was. He is wealthier. He has more influence over key Westerosi institutions, in what some call the Oldtown Triad (the Citadel, the Faith and House Hightower). And he has convinced the king that he is an honorable man — “an unwavering and loyal Hand,” as King Viserys (Paddy Considine) calls him.By the end of the series premiere, Viserys’s brother, Daemon (Matt Smith), appears poised to be the king’s chief antagonist. Daemon is certainly formidable — and sneaky. But the king should probably also keep his eye on his own Hand, who has the superior spy network. To whom does the maester whisper first? When Daemon makes an unwise comment in a brothel, who hears it from three corroborating witnesses?And what of that mysterious letter Otto sends to Oldtown? From what we’ve seen so far, Otto seems to be our Littlefinger, Varys and Tywin, all rolled into one delightfully devious character.Otto, however, is not the lord of Hightower. That would be his older brother, Hobert (Steffan Rhodri), first glimpsed swearing fealty to King Viserys’s daughter, Rhaenyra.Masterminding the maesters?House Hightower helped found the Citadel, the center of scholarship in Westeros, and provides continuing financial support, earning the head of the family the title “Defender of the Citadel.” It is a honorary title, and the role is more like a patron than a protector. The maesters — who are supposed to disavow family loyalties — are likely to feel some gratitude. Or more.Like Tywin Lannister in “Game of Thrones,” Otto, right, uses his daughter (Emily Carey) as king bait.Ollie Upton/HBOThere are already conspiracy theories floating around about Grand Maester Mellos (David Horovitch), suggesting that he, like Grand Maester Pycelle on “Thrones,” would allow or even cause those under his care to die if it furthered the Hightower agenda. A stretch? Perhaps. But as we learn in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” books, there might be some corruption at the Citadel. It could be that the maesters, who control much of the information in Westeros and are positioned at noble households throughout, are compromised. Otto might benefit from their eyes and ears.Have faithThe period of Westerosi history depicted in “House of the Dragon” takes place before the Sept of Baelor, the great cathedral where Cersei began her walk of shame, was built; back then, the Starry Sept was the center of religious power, and the city of Oldtown was considered holy. In addition to the Hightowers having contributed many sons to the clergy’s ranks, they also built the Starry Sept.The church has a long, fraught history with the Targaryens, who worshiped different gods when they came conquering. In the premiere, Otto warns that Daemon could be a “second Maegor, or worse,” which brings to mind the religious war started by Maegor the Cruel, the third Targaryen king, when a Hightower led the church.Money talksJust as the Lannisters and Tyrells were among the wealthiest families of their era, the Hightowers and Velaryons are among the richest in theirs. The Hightowers, who rule over the center of trade in one of the richest agricultural regions, represent old money, however, while the Velaryons wield new wealth. This makes Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) a threat to Otto.Otto’s alliances are strong, however, among other Small Council members: Mellos, part of the Citadel faction; the master of laws and lord of Harrenhal, Lyonel Strong (Gavin Spokes), who also studied at the Citadel; and the master of coin and lord of Honeyholt, Lyman Beesbury (Bill Paterson), a sworn vassal of House Hightower.Heir for a dayIn the first episode, Otto seems fixated on removing any candidates for the line of succession whom he can’t control. He dismisses the idea that King Viserys’s cousin Rhaenys (Eve Best) — who is married to Lord Corlys — should become queen, yet he suggests that Rhaenyra be named heir. (Clearly, it’s not just about gender.) He also campaigns against Daemon, who was the presumed heir, a conflict that seems unlikely to subside anytime soon.But Otto wages war by spilling ink, not blood. It’s the Hightower way. And in a war of words, Otto — like the scheming wedding planner Tywin — could wield the mightier sword. More

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      ‘Katrina Babies’ Review: Hearing From Survivors

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      Edward Buckles Jr.’s intimate documentary sheds light on the experiences of Black children when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.Who gets to use the notion of “resilience”? Survivors? Mental health professionals? People who want to celebrate it but also move on from whatever required that fortitude in the first place?The director Edward Buckles Jr. makes a telling point of these tensions in his first film, the revealing documentary “Katrina Babies,” which features Black people who were children —— some toddlers, others in their early teens — in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. “Since the storm, it seems like everybody just moved on,” Buckles Jr. says. “In America, especially during disasters, Black children are not even a thought.”The director, who is also credited as a writer, knows the subject from his own experience. When he was 13, he and his family evacuated the city before the storm arrived and the levees broke.“Katrina Babies” is deeply personal and thoughtfully political. The filmmaker recounts the pleasures of cousinhood and family before the hurricane. He and his subjects also tussle with the economic and racial inequities that were exposed and exacerbated by the disaster.Buckles Jr.’s cousins — whom he celebrates with evocative mixed-media animation (by Antoni Sendra) and, later, with compassionate interviews — did not get out at the time. And when they did leave, they did not return. So, if you detect in Buckles Jr. a layer of survivor’s guilt, you might be right.But “Katrina Babies” is also the intimate undertaking of a native son creating a space to heal. If the grief (and relief) expressed in the interviews is any measure, Buckles Jr. knows how to listen to people whose experiences may be harrowingly similar but are not identical to his own. He pulls off this dance of self-awareness and empathy with impressive humility.Katrina BabiesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 19 minutes. Watch on HBO platforms. More