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      Paul Justman, Who Shed Light on Motown’s Unsung Heroes, Dies at 74

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      After establishing himself as a leading music video director in the 1980s, he found acclaim with his 2002 documentary about session musicians.During the filming of a climactic scene in his critically acclaimed documentary, “Standing in the Shadows of Motown,” a celebration of the unheralded session musicians behind countless 1960s hits, Paul Justman could have found himself foiled by Detroit’s harsh winter.Arriving at the city’s MacArthur Bridge one morning to interview the guitarist Eddie Willis about Motown’s fateful move to Los Angeles in 1972, Mr. Justman and his crew found the bridge blanketed with fresh snow, seemingly impenetrable. But the director was undeterred.“To Paul, this was an opportunity,” his brother, the musician Seth Justman, said by phone. “The glistening snow helped accentuate the feeling of loss.”Throughout his career, Mr. Justman blended a photographer’s eye with a musician’s feel for the pulse of pop as a prominent director of music documentaries and videos.He died on March 7 at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles. He was 74. His death, which was not widely reported at the time, was confirmed by his brother.While Mr. Justman enjoyed a long and varied career, he is best known for “Standing in the Shadows of Motown.” That film, released in 2002, brought to light the lasting contributions made to pop music by the session musicians, known as the Funk Brothers, who fueled countless era-defining Motown hits despite working in obscurity.“This salute to the literally unsung and underrecognized studio heroes of Motown is so good because it is one of those rare documentaries that combine information with smashing entertainment,” Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times wrote in a review. “And it is one of the few nonfiction films that will have you walking out humming the score, if you’re not running to the nearest store to buy Motown CDs.”Among Mr. Justman’s other documentaries were “The Doors: Live in Europe 1968” (1990) and “Deep Purple: Heavy Metal Pioneers” (1991). He also made features, including the 1983 battle-of-the-bands tale “Rock ’n’ Roll Hotel,” which he directed with Richard Baskin, and “Gimme an ‘F,’” a romp about cheerleaders, released the next year.Still, none of his films could match the ubiquity of the music videos he made in the 1980s, capturing the era’s Day-Glo look and Pop Art sensibility as MTV reshaped the pop landscape.Mr. Justman brought a quirky sense of deadpan to videos like the Cars’ “Since You’re Gone,” Diana Ross’s “Muscles” and Rick Springfield’s “Don’t Talk to Strangers,” as well as the MTV staple “Centerfold” by the J. Geils Band — for which his brother happened to play keyboards.Some of the studio musicians behind the Motown sound got back together for “Standing in the Shadows of Motown,” among them, from left, Eddie Willis, Joe Messina. Joe Hunter and Bob Babbitt.Entertainment Pictures/Alamy Stock PhotoPaul Evans Justman was born on Aug. 27, 1948, in Washington, the second of three children of Simon Justman, a government systems analyst, and Helen (Rebhan) Justman, a school drama teacher.Growing up in Washington, in Newton, Mass., and in Margate City, N.J., Mr. Justman was drawn to music (he played drums and guitar in rock bands as a teenager) and dance (at 9, he choreographed his own routines for courses at the Boston Conservatory). He also fell in love with photography.After graduating from Earlham College in Indiana in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, he moved to New York City and took a job with a team making short films about American culture for Swedish television.He soon started working as an assistant to Robert Frank, the lauded documentary photographer and filmmaker. He eventually served as an editor on Mr. Frank’s notorious warts-and-all documentary about the Rolling Stones’ raucous 1972 North American tour, which became famous, in part for its obscene name, although it was never officially released.Mr. Justman, who moved to Los Angeles in 1980, was also a fixture behind the scenes with the J. Geils Band as it was climbing from the clubs of Boston toward fame. In the mid-1970s, he made a short documentary, “Postcards,” about the high-energy blues-rock band’s frenzied life on the road. That film, which featured appearances by the rock critic Lester Bangs, was broadcast on PBS.In addition to his brother, Mr. Justman is survived by his wife, Saundra Jordan, and his sister, Peggy Suttle Kligerman.Not all Mr. Justman’s work with the J. Geils Band was behind the camera. He often collaborated on songs with his brother, and he contributed lyrics for all the songs on the band’s final studio album, “You’re Gettin’ Even While I’m Gettin’ Odd” (1984), recorded after the kinetic frontman, Peter Wolf, left the band. (Seth Justman handled most of the lead vocals.)But, his brother said, it was Mr. Justman’s ever-present videos that helped break the band into the pop stratosphere. His “Freeze Frame” video, featuring band members dressed in white and splattering one another in paint as if they were human Jackson Pollock canvases, received heavy airplay on MTV. The song hit No. 4 on the Billboard singles chart in 1982.But it could not match “Centerfold,” from the previous year, in ubiquity. The video for that song, featuring models marching around a high school classroom in teddies and, famously, a snare drum filled with milk, become a token of Generation X pop culture, and the song became the band’s first and only No. 1 hit.“MTV was really starting to cook,” Seth Justman said of “Centerfold,” “and that cinematic and energetic approach, along with splashes of humor, resonated and lit the fuse. The song, and the video, shot like a rocket.” More

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      How MTV Broke News for a Generation

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      MTV News bridged a gap between news and pop culture without talking down to its young audience. As it prepares to shut down, Kurt Loder, Tabitha Soren, Sway Calloway and others reflect on its legacy.A little over a year into his first term, President Bill Clinton made good on a promise to return to MTV if young voters sent him to the White House. The town hall-style program in 1994 was meant to focus on violence in America, but it was a question of personal preference that made headlines and helped put MTV News on the media map.Boxers or briefs?“Usually briefs,” Mr. Clinton responded to a room full of giggles.Now, a generation after MTV News bridged the gap between news and pop culture, Paramount, the network’s parent company, announced this week that it was shuttering the news service.The end of MTV’s news operation is part of a 25 percent reduction in Paramount’s staff, Chris McCarthy, president and chief executive of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks, said in an email to staff that was shared with The New York Times.MTV News and its cadre of anchors and video journalists were the ones to tell young people about the suicide of Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, and the killings of the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. They brought viewers on the presidential campaign trail and face to face with world leaders like Yasir Arafat, and took them into college dorms in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. They also embraced the messy chaos of 1990s and early 2000s celebrity, as when Courtney Love interrupted an interview with Madonna. They always put music first.Through it all, MTV News never strayed from its core mission of centering the conversation around young people.“There were no comparisons, it was one of one,” said SuChin Pak, a former MTV News correspondent. “We were the kids elbowing in. There just wasn’t anything out there for young people.”SuChin Pak, left, an MTV News correspondent, with Fergie, of the rap group the Black Eyed Peas, and Snoop Dogg. Ms. Pak said of MTV News, “We were the kids elbowing in.”Jason Merritt/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesMTV News broke up the television news environment “in terms of young versus old, hip versus square” rather than the conservative-versus-liberal approach of many cable news networks today, said Robert Thompson, a professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University. Its influence can be seen in the work of Vice News, the brash digital-media disrupter that is preparing to file for bankruptcy, and in the hand-held camcorder style of reporting that some CNN journalists have embraced.MTV was able to corner a young audience who could name the entire catalog of the band Flock of Seagulls but also had a curiosity about current events, he said.The Music Television network debuted in 1981 like a “fuse that lit the cable revolution,” Mr. Thompson said. Six years later, MTV News came on air under the deep, sure-footed voice of Kurt Loder, a former Rolling Stone editor, who co-hosted a weekly news program called “The Week in Rock.” But it was his interrupting-regular-programming announcement of Cobain’s death in 1994 that cemented Mr. Loder as “the poet laureate of Gen X,” Mr. Thompson said.“It was live TV at its best, I suppose, for an awful event,” Mr. Loder, who now reviews films for Reason magazine, said in an interview.MTV News tried to set itself apart from other cable news operations in a number of ways, Mr. Loder said.For starters, its anchors and correspondents did not wear suits. They also weren’t “self-righteous” and tried “not to talk down to the audience,” he said. That became especially important as rap and hip-hop seeped into every fiber of American culture.“We didn’t jump on rap at all as being a threat to the republic; we covered that stuff pretty evenhandedly,” Mr. Loder said. MTV then started adding more hip-hop to its music programing “and suddenly there’s a whole new audience.”Sway Calloway was brought into the MTV News fold to “elevate the conversation” around hip-hop and pop culture, and to do so with credibility.“MTV News took news very seriously,” he said. “We all wanted to make sure that we kept integrity in what we did.”Mr. Calloway, who now hosts a morning radio program on SiriusXM, said he knew respect for hip-hop culture had reached a new level when he was sitting in the Blue Room of the White House with President Barack Obama.“When Biggie said, ‘Did you ever think hip-hop would take it this far?’ I never thought that the culture would be aligned with the most powerful man in the free world, that we would be able to have a discussion through hip-hop culture that resonates on a global basis,” Mr. Calloway said. “That’s because of MTV News.”From its inception, MTV News saw itself as a critical connector for young voters. Tabitha Soren, an MTV News correspondent in the 1990s, saw that first hand on the campaign trail with MTV’s “Choose or Lose” get-out-the-vote campaign, and in the White House.“People were very earnest and sincere in wanting young people to be educated voters, not just willy-nilly, get anybody to the ballot box,” she said. “I felt like we were trying to make sure they were informed.”For Ms. Soren, who was 23 when she first appeared on air for MTV News in 1991, being able to connect with a younger audience was made easier because she was their age, she said. That meant asking Arafat about the role of young people in the intifada and going to Bosnia to follow American troops, many of whom were the same age as MTV’s viewers.“I was empathetic because I was their age,” said Ms. Soren, who is now a visual artist in the Bay Area. “My natural curiosity most of the time lined up with what the audience wanted to hear about.”During a town hall-style forum on MTV in 1994, President Bill Clinton was famously asked about his preference in underwear.Diana Walker/Getty ImagesThat rang especially true for Ms. Pak, who was born in South Korea and filmed a docu-series for MTV News about growing up in America with immigrant parents.“It was a culture shift for me personally, but with an audience that suddenly was like, wait, are we going to talk about this version of what it means to be American that is never shown and never talked about, and do it in the most real way possible?” said Ms. Pak, who was with MTV for a decade and now co-hosts a podcast. “Where else would you have seen that but MTV?”Just as Mr. Loder and Ms. Soren became cultural touchstones for Generation X, Ms. Pak, Mr. Calloway and others filled that role for millennials. Racing home after school to catch Total Request Live, they watched video journalists report the day’s headlines at 10 minutes to the hour during the network’s afternoon blocks and between Britney Spears and Green Day videos.“A lot of people were getting their news from us, and we understood that and knew it,” Ms. Pak said. “For all of us it was, OK, what is the audience, what’s our way in here that feels true? You do that by sitting down with them versus standing over them.” More

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      Sum 41 Says It Will Disband After Final Album and Tour

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      With catchy songs like “Fat Lip” and “In Too Deep,” the Canadian band was part of a pop-punk wave that included Blink-182, Simple Plan, Good Charlotte and others.The band Sum 41 announced on Monday that it was breaking up after 27 years, unleashing a well of nostalgia for the early 2000s, when pop punk seemed ubiquitous on MTV’s “Total Request Live” and in memorable scenes in blockbuster movies.The Canadian group, fronted by the spiky-haired singer Deryck Whibley, was part of a pop-punk wave that included Blink-182, Simple Plan, Good Charlotte and Avril Lavigne. Their hits included “Fat Lip” and “In Too Deep,” which fans loved to belt out in their car or jump up and down to at shows.The band’s music was also featured in popular movies from the early 2000s, among them “Spider-Man,” “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and “Bring It On.”In a statement on Twitter, Sum 41 did not explain why it was disbanding. It said it planned to finish its tour this year and that it would release a final album, “Heaven :x: Hell,” and announce a final tour to celebrate the end of its run.“Being in Sum 41 since 1996 brought us some of the best moments of our lives,” the band members wrote. “We are forever grateful to our fans both old and new, who have supported us in every way. It is hard to articulate the love and respect we have for all of you and we wanted you to hear this from us first.”News of the band’s decision led fans to mourn the end of an era. While many punk fans scorned Sum 41 and other groups like it as safe and conventional, pop-punk fans said the music was part of the soundtrack of their youth.“Fat Lip” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart after Sum 41’s breakthrough album, “All Killer No Filler,” was released in 2001. And decades later, fans still packed Sum 41’s shows clad in fishnet stockings or dark skinny jeans and heavy eyeliner, accented with tricolor wrist sweatbands.“Sum 41 is most definitely on the Mount Rushmore of early 2000s pop punk,” said Finn McKenty, the creator of the YouTube series “The Punk Rock MBA,” which features an episode on “The Strange History of Sum 41.”“To be able to ride the wave of the MTV-type hype that they had and turn that into a career with real longevity and respect is a rare thing that they were able to pull off,” Mr. McKenty said.The band’s music seemed to capture the spirit of suburban teenage high jinks.In an interview with Billboard in 2021, Mr. Whibley said that when the band, which formed in suburban Toronto in 1996, was trying to gain notice, its members filmed themselves “doing stupid stuff like drive-by water gunning people, egging houses, and cut it with some film of our shows.”The band’s manager then sent a three-minute version of the video to record companies.“And then, it was a matter of weeks,” Mr. Whibley said. “Every label in the U.S. was trying to sign us, and it turned into a big bidding war.”Mike Damante, the author of “Hey Suburbia: A Guide to the Emo/Pop-Punk Rise,” said that Sum 41 was one of the first popular pop-punk bands to fuse metal and hip-hop and that it was disbanding during “a really nostalgic time period for this time in music.”In recent years, Sum 41 had toured with Simple Plan and The Offspring.Mr. McKenty said the band had recently been producing music that was “as good or better” than its music from the early 2000s.“I always like to see people go out on top, rather than go out sad,” he said. More

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      Drew Barrymore Drops Out of Hosting MTV Awards Show Over Writers’ Strike

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      Just days before the show was scheduled to air, the actress and talk-show host said she would pick up her hosting duties next year.Drew Barrymore will no longer host the MTV Movie & TV Awards on Sunday, announcing that she would step down in support of the writers’ strike in Hollywood that has seen late-night comedy shows go dark and thousands of television and movie writers take to picket lines.Ms. Barrymore’s decision, which was announced Thursday, was the latest blow to the awards show, which has also canceled its red carpet and may see other talent withdraw, according to Variety.“I have listened to the writers, and in order to truly respect them, I will pivot from hosting the MTV Movie & TV Awards live in solidarity with the strike,” Ms. Barrymore said in a statement to the publication. “Everything we celebrate and honor about movies and television is born out of their creation.”Ms. Barrymore said on Instagram she would return to host the show next year and was still planning to watch the show on Sunday. Representatives for Ms. Barrymore and for MTV could not immediately be reached Friday morning.Bruce Gillmer, a president at Paramount Global and an executive producer of the MTV Movie & TV Awards, told Variety that the show would go on without a host.It’s unclear which celebrity presenters and guests are still planning to attend, including Jennifer Coolidge, who is being honored.The MTV Movie & TV Awards has handled sudden shifts before, postponing and ultimately canceling its show in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. A special, hosted by the actress Vanessa Hudgens, aired later that year.Thousands of screenwriters went on strike on Tuesday, after 15 years of relative labor peace in Hollywood.Some of the most immediate effects were seen on talk shows and sketch shows. New episodes from late-night shows hosted by Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel have been suspended. “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers” have aired reruns while the hosts of those shows and NBC have agreed to extend staff pay for a short period, according to Deadline.“Saturday Night Live” canceled a new episode scheduled for this weekend, and NBC said it would “air repeats until further notice.”Writers have said that their compensation has remained the same even as television production has grown over the past decade. The unions representing the writers, the East and West branches of the Writers Guild of America, said “the companies’ behavior has created a gig economy inside a union work force, and their immovable stance in this negotiation has betrayed a commitment to further devaluing the profession of writing.”W.G.A. leaders said that the survival of writing as a profession was at stake during the negotiations.The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of Hollywood companies, said in a statement before the strikes began this week that its offer included “generous increases in compensation for writers.” More

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      Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Tries Reality TV to Find ‘the Next Great Artist’

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      Seven artists compete for an exhibition at the museum in a series it produced with MTV and the Smithsonian Channel.“One of you will show your work at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and will take home $100,000.”At least that’s the promise made by Dometi Pongo, the host of a new reality television series, “The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist,” about the making of an art star. The first season is six episodes, produced by the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn together with MTV and the Smithsonian Channel.The program, which starts March 3, focuses on seven rising artists from around the country who were selected by Hirshhorn curators. Each week, the artists are commissioned to make a themed work — such as an exploration of gender — that is evaluated by Melissa Chiu, the Hirshhorn’s director, and a team of guest judges (the artists Adam Pendleton, Kenny Schachter and Abigail DeVille are among them).“This TV partnership was really about an expansive idea of art — radical accessibility,” Chiu said in a telephone interview, adding that the show will be “bringing new light to artists and artwork.”The show’s host, Dometi Pongo, left, with three of its judges: Melissa Chiu, director of the Hirshhorn; Kenny Schachter, an artist and writer; and Keith Rivers, a Hirshhorn trustee and collector.via Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Photo by Shannon FinneyThe artist Jennifer Warren inside Barbara Kruger’s “Belief + Doubt” (2012) at the Hirshhorn Museum during filming.via Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Photo by Shannon FinneyWhether audiences find the making of art compelling television remains to be seen. Chiu said she hopes the show will help “demystify what it means to be an artist.”The artists are Jamaal Barber, Misha Kahn, Frank Buffalo Hyde, Baseera Khan, Clare Kambhu, Jillian Mayer and Jennifer Warren.The weekly series will feature artwork from the museum’s collection, including pieces by Harold Ancart and Jacqueline Humphries and an exhibit by Barbara Kruger. Chiu said the program was part of the museum’s mission to serve as “the national museum of modern art” and builds on its recent initiatives, including the revitalization of its Sculpture Garden with a design by Hiroshi Sugimoto that connects to the National Mall.Recently, the museum also appointed the Colombian pop star J Balvin as a global cultural ambassador to work with teens in its Artlab education center. And the museum recently created the Hirshhorn Eye (Hi), which allows visitors to point their phones at a work of art and see a video of the artist talking about it.Having the TV series broadcast on both MTV and the Smithsonian Channel (there are no plans to stream it) will allow the Hirshhorn to reach both “a younger demographic as well as a more mature demographic,” Chiu said, adding that she hoped the program would reveal more about “what the museum does, but also the artistic process.” More

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      in Television

      A Gay Icon From Reality TV’s Early Years Makes a Hesitant Return

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      Danny Roberts, a star of “The Real World” on MTV, brought a sense of possibility to the pop culture landscape during a fraught time for gay representation.GRAFTON, Vt. — When you cross into Vermont from New York, the road opens up and the Green Mountains emerge. Make it to Grafton (population: 645), and your cell service largely evaporates. This was where, on a recent day, Danny Roberts was standing in the doorway of the tiny cabin in the woods where he lives with his 6-year-old daughter. His eyes are crinkly now; his sandy hair seems uncertain of its next move. He has grown out a beard.His daughter was out for the day, Mr. Roberts said. His mother, who was visiting for the week, was watching her.“It’s kind of the elephant in the room with my family,” he said. “We don’t talk about the reality TV thing.”When he first put himself out there, in the ninth season of “The Real World,” he was young and a bit naïve. Now, at 44, he’s doing it again, for reasons he can only half-explain.The phrase “reality TV” was just becoming part of the everyday lexicon when he found himself jammed into a house in New Orleans with six other young people who — with the help of a few narrative contrivances — were taking their first stumbles into adulthood.When he and his fellow players left “The Real World” for the real world, the stumbling continued, and Mr. Roberts learned that the TV version of himself had become a shadow that traveled with him. Danny Roberts meant something to people.Mr. Roberts, left, and the cast of “The Real World: New Orleans” at the People’s Choice Awards in 2001.Ron Galella Collection, via Getty ImageIf you’re not a member of the microgeneration able to bust out the chorus to the Spice Girls hit “Wannabe” from memory, there’s a good chance you have no idea who Mr. Roberts is. But for a swath of gay elder millennials whose formative years unfolded to an MTV soundtrack, his reappearance as a cast member on a streaming return to “The Real World” on Paramount+ is likely to spark that old zig-a-zig-ah.In 2000, Mr. Roberts was something new in pop culture: a gay sex symbol zapped into the basement rec rooms of teenagers who had never encountered such a creature. Gay people, at the time, were becoming more visible on TV — thanks, in large part, to earlier installments of “The Real World” — but none had the wholesomeness and confident sexuality that Mr. Roberts, then 22, exuded with every flash of his Mona Lisa-meets-Backstreet Boy smile.The project of L.G.B.T.Q. visibility was going through an awkward phase in that time. Ellen DeGeneres’s coming out in 1997 created a sense that things were changing. But her sitcom, “Ellen,” was canceled one season after her revelation.“Will & Grace,” another sitcom, broke some ground by chronicling the relationship between a gay man and his straight friend, but discerning viewers couldn’t help but notice that it had about as much bite as “I Love Lucy.” In 2000, “Survivor,” then in its first season, delivered an openly gay (and, often, openly nude) antihero in Richard Hatch, who schemed his way to million-dollar victory. But he was a rather dark, Machiavellian figure.“The Real World” had featured L.G.B.T.Q. people since its 1992 debut — most notably Pedro Zamora, a young activist from the third season, who died of AIDS-related illness a day after the finale — but Mr. Zamora’s impact was complicated by deep sadness.Mr. Roberts, born and raised in small-town Rockmart, Ga., was something different from his TV predecessors. Rather than playing a jester, villain or de-eroticized Ken doll, he was chill, joyful in his identity, and he seemed to glow with an unapologetic sex appeal.“It’s kind of the elephant in the room with my family,” Mr. Roberts said. “We don’t talk about the reality TV thing.”Adrianna Newell for The New York TimesYes, he was sex on a stick (with a soul patch). And for gay adolescents in a time before social media, who relied on television for glimpses of fellow travelers, the sight of him bopping around the “Real World” digs in his black boxer briefs was both an awakening and an indication of new possibilities.Unlike Mr. Zamora, Mr. Roberts was, at the outset, not particularly motivated by activism. His boyfriend during the filming of “The Real World: New Orleans,” an Army officer named Paul Dill, appeared on the show using only his first name, and his face was hidden to conceal his identity. These were the days of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” the Bill Clinton-era policy that allowed L.G.B.T.Q. people to serve in the military under the condition that they stayed in the closet, and Mr. Dill could have lost his job if he had been revealed.The couple took the risk of going before MTV’s cameras not in protest of the policy, but because they couldn’t bear to be apart. Mr. Dill’s blurred-out face in his several appearances became an enduring symbol of the injustice of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” as well as the liminal space gay people occupied.“I really didn’t know what ‘Don’t Ask, don’t tell’ was,” Mr. Roberts said. “I didn’t know the ramifications. We really should have at least changed his name.”The decision would have consequences. After baring himself to the cameras, Mr. Roberts returned to everyday life only to be forced back into a new kind of closet as he tried to continue the relationship.“Every day, we lived with fear,” he recalled. “Of his career being destroyed. Of being dishonorably discharged. And I had my own fear. He was stationed in North Carolina, so we’re in the South, and every kid out there knew who I was.”“You know, Matthew Shepard was just a couple of years before this,” he continued, referring to the gay college student who was kidnapped and murdered in Wyoming in 1998. “You keep repeating in your head: I’m going to get gay-bashed in the parking lot just trying to get my groceries.”Mr. Roberts, right, with fellow cast members on a recent episode of “The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans.”Paramount+After breaking up with Mr. Dill in 2006, Mr. Roberts settled into a life that seemed to mirror the increasing ordinariness of gay men in America. He became a recruiter in the tech industry. He married, adopted his daughter and divorced. (“I don’t recommend marriage,” he said.) In 2018, he announced that he had been living with H.I.V. since 2011. He moved to Vermont.Then, like an old flame, “The Real World” came calling. Mr. Roberts said he found it difficult to resist the paycheck and the chance at closure. “It was a nostalgia thing,” he said. “It’s returning to the scene of the crime.”This time around, he’s more mindful of the way his presence on TV can create change. “For me, personally, all the progress that L.G.B.T.Q. people have made in the last 20 feels very tenuous now,” he said. “This is a chance to remind people about what things were like then, and that we don’t want to go back there.”The new show, “The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans,” doesn’t entirely abandon the reality TV conventions it helped pioneer. In one episode, a drunk cast member tumbles out of an S.U.V. and face-plants on the sidewalk.But as the seven old housemates return to their New Orleans haunts, they carry with them the baggage of middle age. Mr. Dill makes an appearance in a poignant scene on the show’s third episode, coming face to face with Mr. Roberts for the first time since 2006. His face is now fully visible.After making his name in reality TV, Mr. Roberts worked as a recruiter and moved to a small town in Vermont.Adrianna Newell for The New York TimesAs Mr. Roberts strolled the grounds of his rural property on a gray spring day, the easy charisma of his younger self was in evidence. Since 2020, he has been seeing a farmer who lives one town over. (They met on the dating app Scruff.) “He had no clue I’d been on TV,” he said. “I don’t think he grew up with cable.”This time around, there’s nothing to hide. But some habits die hard: Mr. Roberts declined to share the farmer’s name.And while he has mixed feelings about the path that “The Real World” led him down, the experience was as important to him as it was to his fans all those years ago.“I think a lot of people who are marginal, especially who are gay, especially from that time, you felt invisible,” he said. “It’s this deep hole of emptiness. Doing that show was the most exciting, beautiful part of my life at that point. I got my first taste of what confirmation feels like.” More

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      The Moment That Janet Jackson’s Career Stalled and Justin Timberlake’s Soared

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      Jackson was vilified after her 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, while Timberlake’s popularity seemed to take off. Our new documentary examines how the superstars were treated after their unforgettable wardrobe malfunction.Reuters//Gary Hershorn (United States Entertainment)‘Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson’Producer/Director Jodi GomesReporter/Senior Producer Rachel AbramsReporter Alan LightWatch our new documentary on Friday, Nov. 19, at 10 p.m. on FX and streaming on Hulu.The term “wardrobe malfunction” has been part of our vocabulary ever since Janet Jackson’s right breast made a surprise appearance at the end of the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.When Justin Timberlake tore off part of Jackson’s bustier in front of 70,000 people in Houston’s Reliant Stadium, over 140 million people watching on TV gasped — if they noticed.It happened so quickly (the moment lasted nine-sixteenths of one second) that even some of the halftime show’s producers missed it until their phones, and phones all over America, started ringing.“Did you see what just happened?” Jim Steeg, the National Football League’s director of special events, asked Salli Frattini, the MTV executive in charge of the halftime show. She had to rewind the tape to be sure.“We looked at the close-up shot. We looked at the wide shot, and we all stood there in shock,” Frattini recalled in a new documentary by The New York Times.Was it an accident? Was it planned? Was it a stunt?The ensuing uproar — from the N.F.L., from the Federal Communications Commission, from politicians and their allies — was the peak of a national debate at the time over what’s acceptable on America’s airwaves, and who gets to decide.In our documentary, premiering Friday at 10 p.m. Eastern time on FX and Hulu, we hear from the former commissioner of the N.F.L., Paul Tagliabue, and the MTV executives who were in charge of producing the halftime show. And we talk to some of the politicians who seized on the moment to try to rein in content that they deemed inappropriate.We also look back at Jackson’s long career, which never seemed to recover, while Timberlake’s soared. And we consider how issues of race and sexism mixed to consume one superstar’s legacy and propel another’s career to the next level.Supervising Producer Liz DayProducers Fred Charleston, Jr., Anthony McLemore, Timothy MoranCo-Producer Melanie BencosmeDirector of Photography Asad FaruqiVideo Editor Geoff O’Brien“The New York Times Presents” is a series of documentaries representing the unparalleled journalism and insight of The New York Times, bringing viewers close to the essential stories of our time. More

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      Tawny Kitaen, Star of 1980s Music Videos, Dies at 59

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      Ms. Kitaen gained fame for her carefree spirit and sultry dancing in music videos for bands like Whitesnake and Ratt and her role in the movie “Bachelor Party.”Tawny Kitaen, an actress who gained fame in the 1980s for her roles in rock music videos and who starred with Tom Hanks in the movie “Bachelor Party,” died on Friday at her home in Newport Beach, Calif. She was 59.Ms. Kitaen’s death was confirmed by a daughter, Wynter Finley, who said the cause was not known.Ms. Kitaen became a mainstay on MTV in the 1980s when the network was at its peak cultural influence with music videos playing all day.With her flowing red hair and acrobatic moves, Ms. Kitaen appeared in videos for bands like Whitesnake and Ratt, coming across as both sultry and playful. She famously danced on the hood of a white Jaguar in the Whitesnake music video “Here I Go Again” and graced the cover of Ratt’s 1984 album, “Out of the Cellar.”Julie Kitaen was born on Aug. 5, 1961, in San Diego. She studied ballet and gymnastics until she was 15. After appearing in a Jack LaLanne commercial, and in television shows and movies, she gained wider exposure as Mr. Hanks’s fiancée in the 1984 comedy “Bachelor Party.”But it was her appearance in music videos that solidified her image in Generation X’s imagination as a free-spirited beauty having the time of her life.She once described working with Paula Abdul on the set of one video.Ms. Abdul, then a choreographer, asked her what she could do. Ms. Kitaen said she showed Ms. Abdul some of her moves. Ms. Abdul then turned to the director, Marty Callner, and said, “She’s got this and doesn’t need me.” She then left, Ms. Kitaen said.“That was the greatest compliment,” she said. “So I got on the cars and Marty would say, ‘Action,’ and I’d do whatever I felt like doing.”She married the Whitesnake frontman David Coverdale in 1989 and the couple divorced two years later. In 1997, she married Chuck Finley, a major-league baseball pitcher. They had two daughters, Wynter and Raine. The couple divorced in 2002.Later, Ms. Kitaen appeared on reality shows and spoke openly about her struggles with addiction to cocaine and painkillers.In a 2010 interview with The Daily Pilot, she described her volunteer work at a shelter for women who had left abusive relationships and said she herself was a survivor of domestic violence. Ms. Kitaen said that after her divorce from Mr. Finley, she became involved with a man who was physically and verbally abusive.“You don’t want to tell anybody because you feel like a complete fool for staying — you protect them,” she said. “You do everything you can so other people don’t find out that he’s abusing you.”Michael Goldberg, Ms. Kitaen’s agent, said in recent years she appeared on various podcasts and radio shows and relished talking about her time as a figure in rock history.“People still love to hear those stories because the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle is something we all fantasize about, isn’t it?” he said. “And she lived it. And had so much to say about it.”Ms. Kitaen is survived by her two daughters and a brother and a sister. More