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    ‘Hysteria!,’ ‘Stranger Things’ and the Satanic Panic That Never Goes Away

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    Five years ago, the television writer Matthew Scott Kane sold “Hysteria!,” a scripted drama that takes place in the late 1980s. The series was inspired in part by the tumult of misinformation he found online and in the media of the late 2010s. Shows like these take time to make, and Kane worried the idea would pass its best-by date.“I kept thinking, man, I don’t know if this is going to feel relevant,” he said in a recent interview.“Hysteria!” which premiered on Peacock on Oct. 18, is set in a small Michigan town in the grip of the so-called satanic panic of the 1980s and early 1990s, an episode of mass hysteria which imagined that a cross-country network of satanic cults was engaged in ritual abuse, animal sacrifice and infanticide. In the pilot, a high school football star is discovered dead. Suspicion turns to several of his classmates, members of a heavy metal band that exploits satanic imagery.The aesthetics of “Hysteria!” — the wallpaper, the jeans, the popular music — are distinctly ’80s. But the impulse to displace social anxieties onto perceived groups of outsiders is as American as apple pie. (Are those apples poisoned? Do they have razor blades inside?) And in a culture of heightened political rhetoric and pervasive misinformation, as apparent now as it was five years ago, the distance between the satanic panic and current conspiracy theories — QAnon, say, or the supposed grooming of children by queer people — is a short one, barely the length of a suburban lawn.Recent works of fiction — “Hysteria!”; the novel “Rainbow Black”; the fourth season of “Stranger Things”; the film “Late Night With the Devil” — all treat the satanic panic as a discrete historical event. But they also suggest how the panic’s concerns resonate in the present. As it turns out, Americans are still panicking. We may always be panicking.“Hysteria!,” a new Peacock show set during the satanic panic, features an attempted exorcism. Mark Hill/PeacockWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Beyoncé Rumors Briefly Took Center Stage. Kamala Harris Grabbed It Back.

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      Unsubstantiated rumors that the star would appear at the Democratic National Convention, perhaps alongside Taylor Swift, created a daylong frenzy. Then the headliner took control.The report was published around 7 p.m. on Thursday, in all caps. TMZ announced that Beyoncé would be “PERFORMING AT DNC’S FINAL NIGHT!!!” After days of increasingly frenzied rumors that she would make an appearance at the Democratic National Convention, this report set the United Center in Chicago abuzz. But TMZ was wrong. So was Mitt Romney. So were the betting markets. So was basically all of social media.Instead, Vice President Kamala Harris ended the convention by advising attendees to take seriously the task of preserving democracy and not to celebrate prematurely.It was a sobering end to a day of celebrity-centered anticipation. Since the Harris campaign chose Beyoncé’s “Freedom” as its campaign theme song, I had heard intense speculation that the singer would be a special guest on the night of Harris’s acceptance speech to become the party’s presidential nominee. On the convention’s first day, Harris released her new campaign ad, featuring “Freedom.” There was the precedent set by past conventions, with Stevie Wonder performing in 2008 for Barack Obama, and Katy Perry in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. There was the footage of a marching band rehearsing Beyoncé’s songs in the arena.As I entered the United Center, I heard the rumor that Beyoncé and Jay-Z had been in Chicago for several days. Before I settled in at the arena, she had been “sighted” at O’Hare airport. Similar stories were ricocheting across the arena.There was the national anthem sung by the Chicks, with whom Beyoncé performed at the Country Music Association Awards in 2016. Their presence seemed only to reinforce the inevitability of her grand entrance. By 9 p.m., things had reached a fever pitch: I was told by a friend of a friend I was sitting next to that Beyoncé and Taylor Swift were expected to appear onstage together in a mark of feminist solidarity, and stand with the thousands of delegates dressed in suffragist white clothing. The specificity of the rumor was astounding.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Blair Witch Project’ Brings Up a Riddle That Looms 25 Years Later

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      Twenty-five years ago, the indie horror blockbuster compelled audiences to ask, “Was that real?” The question now permeates our age of misinformation.“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.”Audiences packed elbow-to-elbow into theaters in the summer of 1999 saw that shaky white text on a black background during the first moments of “The Blair Witch Project.” What followed was 80 or so minutes of growing dread as three 20-somethings — Josh, Heather and Mike — tried to uncover the truth behind the legend of a supernatural entity called the Blair Witch. It does not end well for the trio.Initially shot for just $35,000, “The Blair Witch Project” grossed almost $250 million, then a record for an indie film. It became a pop culture phenomenon, one that foretold the found-footage horror boom and left one uneasy question hovering over moviegoers: “Is this real?” It’s an existential riddle that looms larger than ever 25 years later, compelling us to apply that exact question to nearly every image, sound or nugget of information we encounter.Back then, creating that air of uncertainty took some strategic work by the directors, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. Marketed as a documentary, promotional materials included missing posters for its largely unknown lead actors — Joshua Leonard; Heather Donahue, now known as Rei Hance; and Michael C. Williams — who had to keep ultralow profiles in the lead-up to the film’s release.A separate faux documentary called “The Curse of the Blair Witch,” which aired on cable TV shortly before the film’s premiere, had an eerily convincing true-crime approach: It incorporated candid-seeming photos of the characters including childhood snapshots, as well as fake newspaper articles and interviews with actors posing as Heather’s film professor and Josh’s girlfriend, among others, to round out the alternate reality.Joshua Leonard and his “Blair Witch” co-stars filmed all the footage used in the movie.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘War Game’ Review: It Can’t Happen Here (Right?)

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      This nail-biter of a documentary imagines it is Jan. 6, 2025, and armed supporters of the losing candidate are hatching a coup and maybe a civil war. What will the nation’s leaders do?“War Game,” a nail-biter of a documentary, asks a question a lot of us don’t want to even consider: What if there’s another Jan. 6, only bigger, better organized and more ideologically cohesive? To try and answer that question, on Jan. 6, 2023, two filmmakers turned their cameras on a nonpartisan group of politicians and intelligence and military advisers who were role-playing in a fake crisis like the assault on the Capitol. Like actors in a grim sequel — Steve Bullock, the ex-governor of Montana, plays the incumbent president — they were taking part in an unnervingly familiar scenario, racing to prevent a coup and maybe civil war.This war game was created by Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group for veterans that was founded in 2009. As in other war games, exercises that simulate and prepare for wars (the U.S. Defense Department uses them), this one features sets of players. On one side is Bullock’s President John Hotham and his team white-knuckling through the unscripted scenario in the (fake) Situation Room; on the other is a fictional group of extremists, the Order of Columbus, who are loyal to the losing candidate, Gov. Robert Strickland (Chris Coffey, an actor). Among the rebels is a cool cat (Kris Goldsmith, an Army veteran), who, from another location, approves moves and disinformation while elsewhere the game’s designers and consultants observe the proceedings.This particular game had one overarching rule: The president and his team have six hours to quell the revolt and ensure the “peaceful transfer of power,” parameters that, as the clock runs out, give it mounting urgency. The movie’s directors, Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber, working with Vet Voice, built sets and, using moody lighting, sleek camerawork and brisk editing, gave the game dramatic shape and momentum, paring down its six hours into a fast-moving 94-minute intrigue. The players did their part, too, of course: Bullock is definitely leading man material, even if, as the crisis deepens, he’s upstaged by Heidi Heitkamp, a former U.S. senator from North Dakota who plays his tough-talking senior adviser.Vet Voice’s appealing C.E.O., Janessa Goldbeck, a former combat engineer officer in the Marine Corps, takes on dual roles here as the game’s onscreen no-nonsense producer and the voice of the offscreen governor of Arizona. When she’s not hovering with the other game producers and consultants — these include the retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and the conservative standard-bearer Bill Kristol — Goldbeck fills in some details. This war game, she explains, was inspired by a sobering 2021 Washington Post opinion piece by Paul D. Eaton, Antonio M. Taguba and Steven M. Anderson, all retired U.S. Army generals.“We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time,” the three wrote, urging the Defense Department to “war-game the next potential postelection insurrection.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cass Elliot’s Death Spawned a Horrible Myth. She Deserves Better.

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      Onstage with her group the Mamas & the Papas at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967, Cass Elliot, the grand doyenne of the Laurel Canyon scene, bantered with the timing of a vaudeville comedian. “Somebody asked me today when I was going to have the baby, that’s funny,” she said, rolling her eyes. The unspoken punchline — if you could call it that — was that she had already given birth to a daughter six weeks earlier.“One of the things that appeals to so many people about my mom is that there’s a certain level of triumph over adversity,” that daughter, Owen Elliot-Kugell, said over lunch at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Los Angeles on a recent afternoon. “She had to prove herself over and over again.”Elliot was a charismatic performer who exuded infectious joy and a magnificent vocalist with acting chops she did not live to fully explore. July 29 is the 50th anniversary of her untimely death at 32, a tragedy that still spurs unanswerable questions. Might Elliot, who was one of Johnny Carson’s most beloved substitutes, have become the first female late-night talk show host? Would she have achieved EGOT status?Half a century after her death, her underdog appeal continues to inspire. Last year, “Make Your Own Kind of Music” — a relatively minor 1969 solo hit that has nonetheless had cultural staying power — became such a sensation on TikTok that “Saturday Night Live” spoofed it, in a hilariously over-the-top sketch in which the host Emma Stone plays a strangely clairvoyant record producer. “This song is gonna be everywhere, Mama,” she tells Elliot, played by Chloe Troast. “Then everybody’s gonna forget about it for a long, long time, but in about 40, 50 years, I think it’s gonna start showing up in a bunch of movies, because it’s a perfect song to go under a slow-mo montage where the main character snaps and goes on a rampage.”Cass Elliot performing on her television special “Don’t Call Me Mama Anymore” in September 1973. After she went solo, she found it hard to shake her nickname.CBS Photo Archive, via Getty Images“S.N.L.” didn’t make a single joke about Elliot’s weight — something that was unthinkable half a century ago. During the height of her fame, Elliot seemed to co-sign some of the jabs at her expense with a shrugging grin.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Happens Next for Kendrick Lamar and Drake? Let’s Discuss.

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      After a week of bitter diss tracks, a conversation about how the rap battle played out for the chart-topping rappers and how their personas and careers might be affected.It’s gotten ugly between Kendrick Lamar and Drake.Over the weekend, the two generation-defining rappers turned a decade of competitive tension into increasingly personal attacks delivered on a barrage of diss tracks filled with taunts, insults, accusations of abuse, alleged inside information and threats.With Lamar’s songs, including “Euphoria” and “Not Like Us,” dominating the online conversation and streaming charts, the battle seemed to cool on Sunday evening, after a resigned-sounding second response this weekend from Drake, who denied some of the most serious claims against him, including pedophilia, even as he doubled down on his allegations against Lamar. Then, on Tuesday, a security guard was shot and hospitalized in serious condition outside Drake’s Toronto home; the authorities said they did not yet have a motive and the investigation was ongoing.As the musical volleys paused, at least for now, the New York Times pop music critic Jon Caramanica and the Times music reporter Joe Coscarelli surveyed the songs, the strategy, the reputational wreckage and where each rapper stands now for an episode of the video podcast Popcast (Deluxe). These are edited excerpts from the conversation.JOE COSCARELLI I don’t think we need to jump in right away to definitively say who we think won this beef, because the fight seems to have been decided by popular vote. Nobody’s really calling this for Drake, right?JON CARAMANICA I think even Drake is not calling this for Drake, because of the tone of what he put out last, “The Heart Part 6.” In the big picture, though, everyone won and nobody won. Thinking about fandom in the stan era, you’re either on one side or the other. But what I’ve realized in the wake of these songs is that Drake fandom comes with different levels of fickleness. His fans are willing to entertain, “Maybe he’s not the person that I thought he was.” Whereas most Kendrick fans are not willing to entertain that idea, despite Drake’s allegations in “Family Matters” that Kendrick at some point hired a crisis management team to cover up that he abused his fiancée, which are quite serious.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      NewJeans Asks U.S. Court for Help Finding YouTuber in Defamation Case

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      The request by NewJeans is the latest effort by the K-pop industry in its struggle to stem rumors on platforms based outside South Korea.NewJeans, one of the biggest K-pop acts, has asked a federal court in California to order Google to release the identity of the person behind a YouTube account that the members say is spreading defamatory statements about them.The group said that a YouTube user with the handle @Middle7 made the statements in dozens of videos that were viewed more than 13 million times, according to the court filing. The group’s lawyer, Eugene Kim, wrote that the account had also engaged in “name-calling or other mocking behavior” targeting NewJeans. The videos “continue to inflict significant reputational damage,” according to the filing.The move, made on March 27, is the latest example of K-pop stars responding to the pressures they face from the fervid online fan culture in South Korea. The request, if granted, would allow the group to sue the YouTube user in South Korea for defamation and insult, which are criminal offenses in the country.“We regularly take legal action for violations of artists’ rights,” Ador, the management agency for NewJeans, said in a statement, confirming that it was pursuing a case against the videos.Mun Hui Kim, a lawyer representing NewJeans in South Korea, declined to comment. Google did not respond to requests for comment. The YouTube account’s owner could not be reached.NewJeans, which has five members, reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 list last year with its second album, “Get Up,” as part of the newest generation of South Korean girl groups dominating K-pop.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      NBC’s Hiring of Ronna McDaniel, Former RNC Head: What’s the Deal?

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      The deal with a former R.N.C. chair who enabled election deniers risked the credibility of NBC News — and ended up pleasing no one.For the past week the best drama on NBC — apologies to Dick Wolf — has been in the news department.On Friday, NBC News announced that it was hiring Ronna McDaniel, the former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, as a political analyst. By Sunday morning, Kristen Welker was grilling Ms. McDaniel on “Meet the Press,” after which the former host Chuck Todd told his successor on-air that their bosses “owe you an apology.” By Monday morning, the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” condemned the hire. By Monday night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow likened it to hiring “a mobster to work at a D.A.’s office.”And by Tuesday, Ms. McDaniel was officially out as an NBC News contributor, having lasted not even a half-Scaramucci.Not long ago, a TV news outlet hiring a former political bigwig might have occasioned grumbling from members of the other party, critiques from journalism watchdogs or anonymous griping among the staff. But it happened, and life went on. This kind of full-on, on-air revolt was something else — because Ms. McDaniel’s hiring was something else.The fiasco at NBC was in part a sign of how media outlets are struggling to cover politics in unusual times. But it was also a battle over how willing they should be to normalize ideas and actions that, in the post–Jan. 6 era, go well beyond politics as usual.The staff rebellion over Ms. McDaniel, after all, was not about her views on entitlement reform or health-care policy. It was about her statements and actions around the attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Throughout November and December of 2020, she supported former President Trump’s efforts to throw out the election results to stay in office, and at one point in the effort called Michigan election officials to ask them to delay certifying the state’s results.And although she didn’t back Mr. Trump’s most far-fetched election-theft scenarios, she continued to say, as in a 2023 interview with Chris Wallace, that she didn’t think President Biden “won it fair.” (Doing damage control in her interview with Ms. Welker, she called Mr. Biden “the legitimate president.”)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Joni Mitchell, Following Neil Young, Returns to Spotify After Protest

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      Her music has quietly reappeared on the streaming service, two years after a departure over what she called “lies” about Covid-19 vaccines in podcasts.Joni Mitchell’s music has quietly returned to Spotify, more than two years after she followed Neil Young in protest of what she called “lies” about Covid-19 vaccines being spread on the streaming platform.There was no official announcement of Mitchell’s decision, but on Thursday fans on social media began to note with excitement the reappearance of some of her albums on Spotify. By Friday morning, most if not all of Mitchell’s original albums had returned, including classics like “Blue” (1971), “Court and Spark” (1974) and “Mingus” (1979).Representatives of the singer-songwriter, her record labels and Spotify either did not answer or had no comment when asked on Thursday and Friday about the apparent return of Mitchell’s albums.In January 2022, with a post on her website titled “I Stand With Neil Young!,” Mitchell said she would be removing all of her music from Spotify. Young had done so after criticizing the service for its support of Joe Rogan, the podcast star whose show had come under fire from doctors and public health officials who said that some of Rogan’s guests promoted misinformation about Covid vaccines.“Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives,” Mitchell wrote.Young returned his music to Spotify last week, saying: “My decision comes as music services Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at Spotify.” Rogan previously had an exclusive deal with Spotify, which has since been renewed — for a reported $250 million — to allow distribution of his show on other platforms.Mitchell, 80, has become more active in recent years after suffering an aneurysm in 2015 that initially left her unable to speak. She has given several performances, including at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022 and at the Grammy Awards in February, and is set to play two “Joni Jam” shows at the Hollywood Bowl in October, joined by Brandi Carlile and others. More