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    How Stingy Boomer Parents Became the Best TV Villains

    Older Americans hold an outsize share of the nation’s wealth and power. Television loves watching their children scramble for a taste.Plots about inheritance and succession are not a new phenomenon. The form could hardly be more familiar: Take an empire-straddling lion-in-winter, throw in some desperately competing heirs and watch as the shifting allegiances and loyalty tests devolve into bedlam. The Gospel of Luke gives us the parable of the prodigal son, in which one child does his duty and the other squanders his inheritance. Shakespeare had King Lear go mad after disinheriting his youngest and being betrayed by his older daughters.Still, even by the accustomed standards, recent television feels utterly awash in succession-themed stories. “Empire,” “Yellowstone” and “La Maison” all hinge on the promises and prevarications of parents and their offspring. On HBO alone, we’ve had “Succession” (children vying for control of a media empire), “The Righteous Gemstones” (children vying for control of a religious empire) and “House of the Dragon” (children vying for control of the family dragons).Neither is this trend reserved for fiction. Two recent documentaries revolve around an emergent archetype in succession stories: the crusty, vainglorious old man whose megalomaniacal allegiance to his business empire supersedes his capacity for common decency.Released in September, the six-part Netflix documentary “Mr. McMahon” explores the legacy of professional wrestling’s most consequential overlord, Vince McMahon, who took over the hardscrabble World Wrestling Federation — previously owned by his father, Vince McMahon Sr. — and transformed it into a global juggernaut. By the 1990s and 2000s, World Wrestling Entertainment (having changed its name in 2002) was drawing huge ratings by dramatizing McMahon’s dueling with his two children, Stephanie and Shane, who both desired, in the W.W.E.’s story line, to compete with and succeed their autocratic father.Professional wrestling is, famously, a strange admixture of reality and fiction; its in-ring beefs are often exaggerated versions of offscreen animosities. “Mr. McMahon” reveals the extent to which the McMahons’ televised rivalries were true to life. Shane, in particular, butted heads with his father around the height of what is known in wrestling lore as the Attitude Era. The two men ended up battling each other at WrestleMania 17 in 2001, following weeks of onscreen drama regarding the future of the W.W.E. The ensuing “street fight,” as it was billed, turned nasty as the father peppered his son with actual punches, rather than the usual pulled shots. It is unpleasant to watch and hard to turn away from.The wealth hoarding of older generations may be the lurking subtext of all these plots.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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    How ‘The Boys’ Imagines Fascism Coming to America

    “The Boys” and other TV series imagine fascism coming to America, whether wrapped in the flag or in a superhero’s tights.What would fascism look like in America? A quote long misattributed to Sinclair Lewis says that it would come “wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” The comedian George Carlin said that it would come not “with jackboots” but “Nike sneakers and smiley shirts.”“The Boys,” Amazon Prime Video’s blood-spattered, dystopian superhero satire, has another proposal: It would be handsome, jut-jawed and blond. It would wear a cape. And it would shoot lasers out of its eyes.Homelander (Antony Starr) is the star-spangled, nihilistic and enormously popular leader of the Seven, a for-profit league of superheroes produced through bioengineering and drug injections by Vought, a corporation founded by a Nazi scientist. To the public, he is the chiseled personification of national virtue. Behind the scenes, he is a bully, a murderer, a rapist — and, as of the new season, possibly America’s imminent overlord.In Season 4, Homelander goes on trial for murdering an anti-supe protester. He runs ads asking for help against “his toughest opponent yet: Our corrupt legal system.” Amazon StudiosIn the bizarro America of “The Boys,” “supes” are only incidentally crime fighters. They’re valuable corporate I.P., pitching products, starring in movies and reality shows and lending their images to puppet shows and holiday ice pageants. They’re the world’s biggest celebrities, towering on billboards and omnipresent on Vought’s media platforms, and this gives the Seven a power greater than any super-speed or heat vision.When the series begins, however, Homelander is limited, by politics — the government has resisted using supes in the military — and by his deep-seated need for love and approval. Power breeds suspicion (“The Boys” takes its title from an anti-supe vigilante group whose exploits it follows), and Vought is constantly monitoring the Seven’s approval ratings and guarding against backlash. Homelander may be invincible, but he still has to answer to corporate.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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    With ‘Succession’ Complete, the Roys’ Next Takeover Is the Stage

    Audiences are flocking to shows with Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and other alums of the acclaimed HBO series.There seems to be a secret ingredient to stage success this season: a stint on “Succession.”So many “Succession” alums are onstage in New York and London that the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, has been dashing from theater to theater, trying to catch the work of his colleagues. On a recent trip to New York, he saw four shows featuring “Succession” alums, including a revival of Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People,” one of the hottest tickets on Broadway thanks to its star performer, Jeremy Strong, and “The Effect,” an Off Broadway play written by Lucy Prebble, who is also among the producers and writers of “Succession.” In London, Armstrong saw “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” a critically-acclaimed, one-woman adaptation of the Oscar Wilde classic starring Sarah Snook, and is booked to see “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” starring Brian Cox.“We took a lot from New York theater,” Armstrong said, nodding to the many stage actors and playwrights who helped make “Succession” a success, “and I hope this season we are giving something back.”Arian Moayed, who played the investor Stewy Hosseini in “Succession” and starred in a Broadway revival of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” last year, theorized that the show had some theater-like attributes. “Part of what was cool about the show was that we shot it in a very one-act-y kind of way,” said Moayed. There are so many “Succession” alums onstage that one small downtown theater company in New York, Bedlam, advertised its current show, “The Assassination of Julius Caesar as told by William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw,” as “STARRING NO ONE FROM SUCCESSION.”Here is a look at where the Roys and their retainers are onstage now.Brian CoxBrian Cox as James Tyrone in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” left, and as the distant patriarch Logan Roy in “Succession.”From left: Johan Persson; Graeme Hunter/HBOIn “Succession,” Cox played Logan Roy, the merciless media mogul at the heart of the series. Cox, a veteran stage actor (his résumé includes five Broadway shows), is now starring in London’s West End in a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”Jeremy StrongJeremy Strong as Dr. Thomas Stockmann in “An Enemy of the People,” left, and as Logan’s ambitious, wounded son Kendall in the HBO series.From left: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times; HBO, via Associated PressWe 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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    Ilia Malinin Wins Skating Championship With ‘Succession’ Theme Song Routine

    Ilia Malinin, an American teenager, won the men’s World Figure Skating Championships with a performance set to the theme of the HBO series.Like the plot of “Succession,” Ilia Malinin’s winning program for the men’s singles competition at the World Figure Skating Championships on Saturday had a lot of twists: six quadruple jumps that included a quadruple axel, a feat involving four and a half rotations in the air.That those elements were set to the HBO series’ theme song only heightened the drama of Mr. Malinin’s performance.The moody string music that opens the song had only been playing for about 30 seconds when Mr. Malinin, a 19-year-old student at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., executed a quad axel in a costume that resembled a classic tuxedo. Mr. Malinin, who grew up in Fairfax, is the only skater who has landed that jump in competition; he first did so in 2022.By the time of the “Succession” theme’s piano riffs, he had completed three more quads: a quad lutz, a quad loop and a quad salchow. (His knack for executing quadruple jumps has earned him the nickname Quad God.) Before the end of the roughly four-minute program, he landed two more.Mr. Malinin started skating to the “Succession” theme last fall, but he has yet to watch the show. “I don’t have a subscription to HBO,” he said in an interview. “But if I did get it, I’d definitely watch.”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 Emmys Signal the End of the Peak TV Era

    The Emmys on Monday night felt in many ways like a bookend to one of the defining features of the streaming era: a never-ending supply of new programming.As “Succession” cast members marched up to the Emmy stage on Monday night to grab their statues for the show’s final season, they used it as one last opportunity to say goodbye.Kieran Culkin, after kissing his co-star Brian Cox on the lips, gave a tearful speech while accepting the award for best actor in a drama. Matthew Macfadyen and Sarah Snook, who each won acting awards as well, gave loving tributes to fellow cast members. And Jesse Armstrong, the creator of “Succession,” capped off the night by accepting the best-drama award for the third and final time and noting: “We can now depart the stage.”It all punctuated an end-of-era feeling at the Emmy Awards on Monday night. “Succession” was one of many nominated shows that had farewell seasons, joined by a list that included “Ted Lasso,” “Better Call Saul,” “Barry,” “Atlanta” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”But that was not the only reason that there was an elegiac theme to Monday night. The ceremony felt in many ways like a bookend to the so-called Peak TV era itself.Nearly every year from 2010 through 2023, the number of TV programs rose in the United States, reaching 599 scripted television shows last year.It may never hit those heights again.For more than a year now, studios and networks — including streaming giants like Netflix, cable stalwarts like HBO and FX, and the broadcast channels — have hit the brakes on ordering new series. Executives, worried about hemorrhaging cash from their streaming services, customers cutting the cable cord and a soft advertising market, have instead placed more emphasis on profitability. The monthslong screenwriter and actor strikes last year also contributed to the slowdown.With a more frugal approach, there is widespread fear throughout the industry about the fallout from a contraction.The Emmy nomination submission list gives a snapshot. The number of dramas that the networks and studios submitted for Emmy consideration dropped 5 percent, according to the Television Academy, which organizes the awards. Entries for limited series fell by 16 percent, and comedies by 19 percent.At after-parties on Monday night, there was considerable angst at just how much thinner the lineup would probably be for the next Emmys.Some television genres seem to be in some degree of peril. Limited series — six to 10 episodes shows that became a sensation over the past decade, particularly after the 2014 debut of “True Detective,” the 2016 premiere of “American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson” and the 2017 start of “Big Little Lies” — have been a hallmark of the Peak TV era. The shows stood out in part because of the big stars and lavish budgets involved.At the 2021 Emmys, the statue for best limited series was the final award presented. This had long been a designation for best drama, and it signaled an admission by organizers that the category had become television’s most prestigious prize.Not anymore.As part of programming budget cuts, executives now see significantly less benefit to deploying lavish resources to a show that ends after a matter of weeks.Once again, investing in series with lots of seasons is a much bigger priority. And there is a good chance that television may start to look a lot like television from a couple of decades ago.Executives at Max, the Warner Bros. Discovery streaming service formerly known as HBO Max, are looking for a medical drama. “Suits,” a 2010s legal procedural from the USA Network, became an unexpected streaming hit last summer, after millions of people began watching reruns of the show on Netflix. “Next year, you’ll probably see a bunch of lawyer shows,” Netflix’s co-chief executive, Ted Sarandos, said at an investor conference last month.To wit, Hulu recently ordered a project from the star producer Ryan Murphy that will chronicle an all-female divorce legal firm.Of course, Peak TV-era quality television is not going away. “The Bear,” the best-comedy winner and already the runaway favorite for the next Emmys, will return. Also coming back are “Abbott Elementary,” the beloved ABC sitcom, and “The Last of Us,” HBO’s hit adaptation of a video game, which won a haul of Emmys.Even the origin story of “Succession” seems tailor-made for the new television era. When HBO executives ordered the series, they wanted to put their spin on a classic television genre — a family drama — but had low expectations. The show did not command “Game of Thrones” or “Stranger Things” budgets. It was light on stars. Armstrong was not a brand name yet. And yet, it became a hit.Less than an hour after the Emmys ceremony ended, when Armstrong was asked at a news conference what he would turn to next, he demurred.Instead, he reflected on the past.“This group of people, I don’t expect to ever be repeated,” he said, of “Succession.” “I hope I do interesting work the rest of my life. But I’m quite comfortable with the feeling that I might not ever be involved with something quite as good.” More

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    Emmys Takeaways: ‘Succession’ Triumphs as ‘The Bear’ and ‘Beef’ Also Win

    “Succession” triumphed one last time.HBO’s chronicle of a feuding media dynasty took best drama honors for its final season at the Emmys on Monday night, the third time the show has claimed television’s most prestigious prize. “Succession” swept nearly all the major acting awards for drama, with Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook and Matthew Macfadyen winning for their last-season performances. Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, won his fourth Emmy for best drama writing — one for each “Succession” season.The show now joins the fabled ranks of dramas that were rewarded with top honors for their farewell seasons, a lineup that includes “The Sopranos,” “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones.”“It was a great sadness to end this show, but it was a great pleasure to do it,” Armstrong said, as he accepted his best writing Emmy.Emmys voters were not as kind to other returning winners.“The Bear,” the FX and Hulu series chronicling an oddball Chicago-based restaurant staff, took best comedy honors for its freshman season. “The Bear” bested “Ted Lasso,” the big-hearted Apple TV+ series that previously won best comedy two times in a row, which is widely believed to have wrapped its final season.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?  More

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    Golden Globe Awards Takeaways: ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Succession’ Win Big

    The 81st Golden Globes kicked off Hollywood’s awards season on Sunday in a chaotic and sloppy manner, with the host, Jo Koy, delivering a train wreck of a monologue, winners alternately seeming to take the ceremony seriously and not at all, and prizes going to a wide array of films and television shows.“Oppenheimer,” which entered the ceremony with eight nominations, emerged as the movie to beat in the coming Oscar race, winning five Globes, including for best drama, Christopher Nolan’s directing and Cillian Murphy’s acting. “Barbie,” “The Holdovers” and “Poor Things” also won notable movie awards.Here are the other main takeaways:The most nominated film, “Barbie,” which received citations in nine categories, won two Globes, including the one for best cinematic and box office achievement, a newly created prize. Its other victory was for best song.HBO’s “Succession” was the top television winner, as expected. The show collected Globes for best drama, actress (Sarah Snook), actor (Kieran Culkin) and supporting actor (Matthew Macfadyen).“Poor Things,” a surreal science-fiction romance, won best movie, comedy or musical. Emma Stone, the film’s star, received the Globe for best comedic actress, while Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”) received the statuette for best comedic actor.Lily Gladstone won the Globe for best actress in a drama for her performance in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” becoming the first Indigenous person to win the award.Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers”) was honored as best supporting actress. Robert Downey Jr. (“Oppenheimer”) won best supporting actor.Netflix’s “Beef” and FX’s “The Bear” each won three Globes. “Beef” was named best limited series, and Ali Wong and Steven Yeun collected Globes for their acting in the show. “The Bear” won the trophy for best comedy and two of its stars, Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy Allen White, were honored for their performances.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?  More

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    10 Works and Performances That Helped Me Make Sense of 2023

    Global conflict and personal loss encouraged our critic to seek out art that gave her a better understanding of grief and healing.“I hope you don’t mind if we carry on,” Juicy says at the end of “Fat Ham.” The other characters in the play then begin cleaning and clearing the stage, an act that affirms Juicy’s proposition and, in this work inspired by Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, suggests that there might be a way for them to work through their shared trauma together.Those words hit me hard when I heard them last spring. I was staving off my own mourning as my family prepared for the 10th anniversary of my brother Shaka’s death from cancer. That, coupled with political crises and global despair, pushed me to find film, television and performances that helped me make sense of my grief and, hopefully, find a release for it.‘Fat Ham’I almost didn’t see what ended up as one of my favorite plays of the year. I could not wrap my head around the story line of a Black, queer, “Hamlet”-like play, even after it had won over my fellow critics and earned the Pulitzer Prize for best drama. Then I saw it on Broadway. I was startled by its clever transformation of an Elizabethan-era depressive into Gen Z ennui through its main character Juicy (Marcel Spears), a 20-something mourning his father’s death as well as the hyper-masculinity that his family and society impose on him. Though Juicy sneaks glances and shares asides with the audience, “Fat Ham” truly breaks theater’s fourth wall when the cast stages a surreal group cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” and then again with its unexpectedly liberatory final scene that invites us to join them in a party filled with glitter, gender fluidity and Black joy. (Read our review of “Fat Ham.”)The Last Season of ‘Succession’Who knew that if you killed off Logan Roy (Brian Cox), the show’s most dynamic character, his children would easily make up for his lost charisma? The “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong, that’s who knew. I can’t think of three more heart-wrenching performances of parental loss than Shiv (Sarah Snook), her voice breaking as she pleads, “Daddy? I love you. Don’t go, please. Not now,” on the phone; Roman (Kieran Culkin), breaking down during his eulogy; and Kendall (Jeremy Strong), the most tragic, as he loses his bid to replace his father as chief executive. In the end, Kendall simply stares out at the water rather than being buoyed up or submerged in it as he has been in the past. A man without a company, it is a fate that, for him, is far worse than death. (Read our review of the “Succession” finale.)‘A Thousand and One’In “A Thousand and One,” Teyana Taylor plays Inez, a mother scarred by her childhood in foster care. Aaron Kingsley Adetola plays Terry.Focus FeaturesWinner of a grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, A.V. Rockwell’s debut feature, “A Thousand and One,” sensitively explores the failure of society’s safety nets to protect Black families and the lengths Black mothers will go to ensure their children’s future. But underneath that story is another: one about the personal voids we try to fill. Appearing in her first leading role, Teyana Taylor plays Inez, a mother scarred by her childhood in foster care. She infused this character with such electricity and vitality that I found myself championing her every move, even, or especially, her most morally ambiguous decisions. (Read our interview with the director.)‘Past Lives’What if someone you pined for turns out to be your soul mate, not in this life, but another? This tension drives Celine Song’s debut film “Past Lives,” a tender portrait of two adults, Na Young (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), who forged a special bond as classmates in Seoul but lost touch over the years. Their poignant performances and Song’s intimate directing style make the chemistry between these two characters believable. But, we, and they, are left with the sense that the chasm caused by immigration (and the self-invention it requires) is insurmountable, making longing the most consistent emotion available to them. (Read our review of “Past Lives.”)‘Purlie Victorious’When he first conceived of writing a play based on his childhood in rural, segregated Georgia, Ossie Davis tried to write it straight. Once he realized that satire was better suited to capture the absurdity and tragedy of American racism, he premiered his first play, “Purlie Victorious.” Back on Broadway 62 years later, the play, directed by Kenny Leon, stars Leslie Odom Jr. as the ambitious preacher Purlie and Kara Young as Lutibelle, a naïve young woman he brings home to impersonate a dead cousin whose inheritance Purlie wants. The resulting ruckus undercuts an enduring racial stereotype — that all Black people look alike — while sharing a radical vision of Black pride and interracial solidarity. Odom is a mesmerizing triumph and Young a hilarious tour de force, while this is Leon (“Fences,” “Topdog/Underdog”) at his very best. (Read our interview with the cast and director.)Jeffrey Wright in ‘American Fiction’Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in “American Fiction.” Ellison is torn between staying true to his highbrow literary vision and caricaturing Black life to make money and take care of his mother. via TIFFJeffrey Wright is a consummate screen stealer — this year alone, I wanted more speeches from his General Gibson in “Asteroid City” and more shade from his Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in “Rustin.” But not since “Basquiat” in 1996 have I seen Wright as a lead in a feature-length film, and his performance in Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” reminds us what an actual loss this is for those of us who love watching movies. He wholly embodies Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a novelist who, in the process of mourning the death of his father and sister, is torn between staying true to his highbrow literary vision and caricaturing Black life to make money and take care of his mother. Wright gives a nuanced, captivating performance, punctuated with humor, anger, desire and vulnerability, while his character conveys the frustrations of Black artists who refuse to conform to the white gaze.‘The Last of Us’There are so many painful separations and sentimental reunions on “The Last of Us,” the dystopian HBO series based on the video game of the same name, that it is hard for me to pick the most affecting one. I am choosing the story in which Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a 14-year-old orphan who is immune to the brain infection that has decimated most of the world, reconnects with her former roommate Riley (Storm Reid), who left to join the resistance. When Riley takes Ellie on an overnight trip to an abandoned mall, we see how liberating their adolescent female desire for each other is, making this night of last memories even more apocalyptic. (Read our review of “The Last of Us.”)Jodie Comer in ‘Prima Facie’When Jodie Comer, best known as an assassin on “Killing Eve,” decided to do her first major stage role, she went big with “Prima Facie.” Alone on a Broadway stage for 100 minutes, Comer commands our attention as Tessa Ensler, a barrister who has moved up in the British class system only to be pulled back down as a victim of a sexual assault. Tessa finds herself in a paradox: In the past, she has defended male clients from assault accusations. Comer moves through the emotions of grief, shame, self-doubt, rage and hope with such intensity that it still seems impossible to me that this was her professional stage debut. (Read our review of “Prima Facie.”)‘Reservation Dogs’Graham Greene as Maximus, left, and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Bear in “Reservation Dogs,” a show that redefined American television.Shane Brown/FXDespite its notable lack of Emmy nods, “Reservation Dogs,” the first television show where every writer, director and main character was Indigenous, redefined American television over three seasons. While it is primarily a coming-of-age story, this final season’s episodes veered thrillingly into family drama, horror, science fiction and comedy. I am sad to say goodbye to these characters, but I am grateful for its brilliant ensemble and its affirmation of community, and how a people who lived and grieved together can, through ritual and remembrance, find their way back to each other and teach themselves, and those watching them, how to heal. (Read our interview with the “Reservation Dogs” showrunner.)Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour“Uncle Jonny made my dress,” Beyoncé rhymes on “Heated,” a single from her 2022 album “Renaissance.” “That cheap spandex, she looks a mess.” That playful line reminds us that she dedicated this album to her maternal uncle Jonny, a Black gay man who helped raise her and died of H.I.V./AIDS-related causes. (She released her concert film on Friday, which was World AIDS Day.) The lyric also declares the political aesthetics of “Renaissance” and the house music and Black queer ballroom cultures that inspired its sound and her style on this year’s behemoth world tour. She encouraged us to wear our most fabulous silver fashions and become human disco balls that mirrored “each other’s joy.” And so we came, witnessed and participated in what was more like a Black church revival than just a stadium concert, in which we left feeling as beautiful in our skin (and our clothing) as she appeared to us onstage. (Read our review of Beyoncé’s tour.) More