And with today’s update, Erika and I are finally on break! We’ll be taking some time off and trying over very best not to do work over the next 6 weeks as we recharge our bones. While you wait for us to come back, we’ve got a whole bundle of amazing guest comics to keep […]
There was a lot of great television in the 2010s — but it was harder than ever to have a conversation about it. | Amanda Northrop/Vox
Shows from Game of Thrones to Fleabag explain the planet, the country, and television in the 2010s.
In the 2010s, television fell apart.
I don’t mean that literally; there is currently more television than ever before, great heaping gobs of it. TV journalist Liz Shannon Miller has calculated the number of shows making their American debuts in primetime or on a streaming service every year for the past half decade; her tally for 2019 is an astonishing 688, and she’s pretty sure she missed some. It is humanly impossible for any one person — or TV critic — to catch up.
Rather than ushering in a new golden age, or even continuing the old one, the sheer glut of 2010s programming led to entropy. Many great TV shows were still made — and happily, many of them were told from the points-of-view of people of color, women, and LGBTQ people.
But those great TV shows were often harder to find than they would have been in the ‘90s or 2000s. Whatever conversation existed around the best of TV seemed to happen not at water coolers actual or virtual, but in a one-sided dialogue with the self. What did you think of that Netflix drama that debuted in 2015, but you’d only just watched? The only person you could really ask was you.
The streaming revolution held promise when it began with Netflix’s first forays into original programming in 2013, but it quickly became a land rush. Rather than grow more thoughtful and cinematic, television was colonized by the sophomoric trends that have dominated multiplexes for years. Distinctive series were crowded out by remakes, sequels, and adaptations based on familiar pieces of intellectual property. Just one month before the decade came to a close, Disney+ launched not with a full slate of originals, but with a giant catalog of Disney content and a new show set in the Star Wars universe — and so many people subscribed on day one that the service was plagued by technical problems.
And yet there was still plenty of TV to love, and the medium’s centrality to the way we think about American life continued virtually unabated. So in that spirit, here are the 21 television shows that best explain the 2010s. Are they unequivocally the best shows of the 2010s? Not necessarily — though I do love all of them. But they are the shows that best explained this messed-up planet, this messed-up country, or this messed-up medium, beginning at the top with a comedy that zeroed in on America’s horrible heart.
Comedy Central
Nathan Fielder’s wild reality show/comedy was a perfect expression of the 2010s American id.
I do not believe any other TV show of the 2010s has quite captured the peculiarly frazzled sense of living through the end times like Comedy Central’s wackadoodle cringe comedy/reality show/bad idea generator Nathan for You.
The series followed comedian Nathan Fielder as he visited a variety of struggling businesses to offer his ideas for how they might improve their fortunes. His ideas were always terrible. He might suggest issuing a too-good-to-be-true coupon redeemable only at the top of a mountain, so customers would have to go on a hike just to use it. Or he might help a moving company scrounge up business by touting its services as a great way for people to get exercise.
Despite the skepticism that Fielder’s elaborate, nonsensical schemes often engendered at the outset, client after client eventually trusted him to try. After all, if there’s any one thing that will help save us, it’s a keen business mind to navigate the wreckage of capitalism. Maybe his ideas were so crazy they just might work! And if nothing else, the client would end up on TV.
What’s fascinating about Nathan for You is that it was never mean to anyone but Fielder. The joke was always on the cocksure certainty of the men who would set fire to something that was working perfectly well and insist it was better for having burned. I might have liked other shows more than Nathan for You this decade, and there might have been better shows. But no show more thoroughly captured America as it really was. It’s the show that best explains the 2010s.
Netflix
BoJack Horseman told the most affecting antihero story of the decade.
“A sad horse” is maybe not who I would have expected to choose as the decade’s finest antihero when BoJack Horseman began in 2014, but Netflix’s animated tale of a middle-aged anthropomorphic equine with addiction problems and a substantial paunch around his midsection hit all the right beats for a story about a character who’s compelling even though he’s awful. It went above and beyond other, similar shows by showing the detritus and destruction BoJack left in his wake, suggesting that while his healing was all well and good, what mattered was whether the people he’d destroyed could find some sort of healing, too. And that question was extremely difficult to answer — both on BoJack Horseman and in a reality filled with horrible men seeking (and occasionally demanding) redemption. That the series was also wildly funny and visually inventive was a cherry on top. (The final eight episodes of the series arrive in January.)
Extremely few people watched The Leftovers, but it seems like the handful of us who did have all either written lengthy columns extolling its brilliance or created TV shows that lift some of its best ideas wholesale. Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof and writer Tom Perrotta adapted Perrotta’s novel about a world where 2 percent of the population has disappeared in a Rapture-like event to be less about the mystery of where those people went (though the show does eventually offer an answer of sorts), and more about how a society atomizes in the wake of a tragic event. Many of the decade’s best TV shows hovered on the precipice of a world about to plunge into utter despair and hopelessness. But The Leftovers got there first.
FX’s spy drama about two married KGB agents living in 1980s Washington, DC, and posing as normal American citizens began its life as a critical cause célèbre, eked out a six-season run despite extremely low ratings, and then unexpectedly became a minor hit thanks to the power of streaming and the fact that “Russians infiltrate the US” went from feeling like a throwback plot to feeling incredibly timely and relevant. But the show’s producers never wanted to make much of any geopolitical echoes. The Americans wasn’t a show about the Cold War, not really. It was about the impossible series of compromises that is any human relationship, and especially a marriage.
AMC
The gang from Halt and Catch Fire sets fire to the tech world.
This low-rated, four-season favorite of mine told some of the most effective emotional stories of the entire decade in any medium, in a way that reflected other storytelling trends. The closer the 2010s came to their end, the more it seemed as if the single most potent idea driving more and more dramas was human connection, and Halt and Catch Fire — about a group of tech pioneers in the ’80s and ’90s — had the power to transport viewers back to a world where computers could unite people rather than divide them, where the internet held promise and not destruction. The show’s most beautiful optimism was that we might be able to return to that world someday.
TV seemed to discover in the 2010s that women can be unlikeable, too, and it offered layered, complicated portrayals of such women in numerous shows across the decade (several of the others also appear on this list). For my money, the single best example was the two-season dramedy Enlightened, in which Laura Dern gave perhaps the finest TV performance of the decade as Amy Jellicoe, a woman wronged by her corporate masters who sets out to take revenge on them and then maybe kinda sorta becomes a better person in the process. Enlightened was a very different kind of antihero story, and creator Mike White’s beautiful empathy for absolutely every one of his characters made for a uniquely affecting show.
Netflix
Danielle Brooks gave a stunning performance in Orange Is the New Black.
Many of the best dramas of the 2010s were defined by their sprawl. They would begin with one isolated story — a well-off white woman goes to prison for a crime she committed long ago, let’s say — and then grow to encompass more and more stories, characters, and themes, until they seemed to be about absolutely everything. Perhaps the foremost example of that tendency was Orange Is the New Black, a series that really did start off as the relatively narrow tale of a well-off white woman going to prison, and by the time it ended was essentially about everybody in the entire world. (I’m only barely exaggerating.) It faltered, because any show with that level of ambition would. But goodness, when it was on, it was on.
Cartoon Network
Finn and Jake set off on an adventure.
The decade’s finest coming-of-age story was this long-running animated series about a boy, his dog, and the magical post-apocalyptic world they’re growing up in together. Adventure Time is the rare show on this list that ran for essentially the entire decade, beginning in 2010 and ending in 2018. And over the course of its run, it found ways to tell stories about the difficult emotional territory of the tween and teen years while also making plenty of room for inventive flights of fancy. There’s never been anything else quite like it in TV history, before or since.
FX
Atlanta creator and star Donald Glover also directed many episodes of the show.
Donald Glover pushed the “comedy series that doubles as a collection of short films” format to new heights with Atlanta, set in a version of the city that’s just a little bit off-kilter. The series was all too happy to dabble in surrealism and dream logic, and it used those qualities to cast a hazy spell over viewers before snapping them back to attention with a portrayal of the inescapable nature of racism for black Americans. All that and it was absolutely hilarious. (A third and fourth season are currently filming.)
Fox
The Belchers are the perfect TV cartoon family.
No decade is complete without a good-natured comedy that runs season after season after season, consistent to a fault. It’s all too easy to forget about Bob’s Burgers because it’s essentially a well-oiled machine, but it’s just as good in 2019 as it was when it debuted in 2011 — no easy feat. The Belcher family remains one of the most enjoyable groups to hang out with in all of television, and the show’s storytelling continues to push itself, even after 10 seasons on the air. (The show continues to air on Sunday nights. It will hopefully remain parked there for the foreseeable future.)
Throughout the decade, with production budgets rising even as digital filmmaking lowered the price of making so-called “cinematic” TV, more and more shows went for broke on looking distinctive af. Perhaps no show fits that description better than Bryan Fuller’s pulpy take on the Hannibal Lecter mythos. The cat-fucks-mouse game between detective Will Graham and serial killer Hannibal was delectably written, but what put the series over the top were its delirious visuals and love of tastefully appointed gore.
Has Amazon’s acclaimed British import been perhaps a tiny bit overpraised at this point? I would argue yes — but that’s only because the show really is good enough to justify having so many plaudits heaped upon it. Fleabag’s caustic and funny portrayal of a woman who only stops hating herself long enough to aim invective at the other people in her life (and maybe even at those of us in the audience) made for a cult favorite in season one, then inverted itself to become a rom-com in season two. The show catapulted writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge to stardom, and justifiably so.
The 2010s were a fantastic decade for women taking the reins of their own productions. From 2012 to 2017, Lena Dunham’s Girls polarized the TV-discussing corner of the internet with its forthright storytelling about young women at their worst. Were we supposed to love these women? Hate them? Both? It didn’t matter. And in the second half of the decade, Pamela Adlon offered a different take on American womanhood — that of someone nearing 50 and trying to navigate the twin pressures of a career and motherhood. By making shows that so perfectly reflected their voices, Dunham and Adlon showed how the TV boys club could be improved by opening its doors just a bit to include women. And I could easily recognize series like HBO’s Insecure or Amazon’s One Mississippi in this space, too. (A fourth season of Better Things is in production.)
One of the decade’s wildest rides, Mr. Robot was also one of the most prescient shows to emerge from the sheer glut that was peak TV. Ostensibly about a hacker who seemed to nearly possess computer superpowers, the show broadened to become a story about the effect of capitalism’s collapse on the human spirit, about the need for connection, and about jerking the rug out from under the audience. I adored the way it seemed aware that it was a TV show being watched by very real people, making it a weird companion piece to Fleabag. (The series finale airs on Sunday, December 22.)
Syfy
This show had occasional musical numbers, too.
The best TV storytelling in the 2010s was sometimes intimate and sometimes maximalist, tossing new ideas at the wall with unchecked glee. Syfy’s The Magicians tried to be both, often in the same line of dialogue, and the result was one of the decade’s highlights. The story of a bunch of depressed twentysomethings who discover they’re great at magic, the series took Lev Grossman’s novel series of the same name and transformed it into heart-wrenching and off-the-wall TV. (Season five debuts in January 2020.)
Honestly, flip a coin in this slot between these two endlessly ambitious series that take wild storytelling chances but don’t always hit the mark. Where the better-known The Good Place keeps expanding outward to encompass the entire universe in its tale of people in the afterlife questioning our moral order, Superstore’s gloss on The Office as a workplace comedy set in a big-box store setting keeps collapsing inward, revealing new depths to its characters and finding new ways to make topics like immigration and unionization funny but also meaningful. (The Good Place wraps up in January. Superstore continues to run on NBC.)
What limited data we have on Netflix viewership suggests that few watched this brilliant little family comedy — the likely reason it was canceled after three seasons. (Pop TV later granted the show a reprieve; its fourth season will air on the cable network in 2020.) But One Day at a Time was the best example of a TV series using the political turmoil of the 2010s to elicit laughs and tears in equal measure, and it boasts one of TV’s best ensemble casts.
The 2010s were a sorry decade for the broadcast network drama. Outside of CBS’s The Good Wife (which began at the tail end of the 2000s and ended in 2016), the format barely maintained a pulse. Thank goodness, then, for this warm-hearted family drama about a loud, fractious family of mostly economically comfortable, mostly white folks who tried to solve every problem with love. It worked surprisingly well surprisingly often; Parenthood’s best seasons (roughly its second through fourth) are beautifully effective kitchen-sink drama.
By far the biggest new idea in TV drama in the 2010s was the anthology series, where each season functioned as a standalone miniseries that told a new story, sometimes with some of the same cast members and sometimes without. The best one was Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story, which offered a triumphant spin on the O.J. Simpson trial in 2016 and a more somber (but just as good) take on the death of Gianni Versace in 2018. By their very nature, anthologies are hit and miss, but so far, American Crime Story is all hit. (A third season — focusing on the Clinton impeachment — will air in 2020.)
Both a triumph and a warning sign, Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s acclaimed dystopian novel, in which fertile women are forced into sexual slavery, began with a pilot that looked like nothing else on TV, and an urgent sense of a world spinning off its axis into oblivion. In later episodes, it simultaneously got better and more difficult to watch, and it’s not clear where the show can possibly go from where its third season ended. But I’ll be watching it. (Season four is in production.)
HBO
Game of Thrones was pretty dang big when it wanted to be.
If you’re making a list of TV shows that explain the 2010s, well, the fantasy epic Game of Thrones belongs on it. No show was bigger. In terms of sheer volume, no show was more shouted about, positively or negatively. And no show left as massive a mark on the TV landscape. It was so big the medium will be chasing it for decades to come. (If nothing else, every network now believes it can mint a gigantic hit by adapting a property popular in another medium, as HBO did with George R.R. Martin’s books.)
But Game of Thrones was also frequently clunky and silly, and the longer it ran, the more it became evident that nobody involved knew how to deliver on the promise of the show’s early seasons. Perhaps Game of Thrones best describes television in the 2010s because the medium as a whole showed so much promise at the start, then gradually seemed to run out of gas.
Honorable mentions
The 21 shows listed alphabetically below might have easily outpaced any of the above on a more traditional “best TV” list, but didn’t capture the 2010s quite as well. Still, they are all well worth checking out.
Visibly toned abdominal muscles have long served as a shorthand for sexiness, at least when it comes to media portrayals of cinema hotties and celebrities. The stars and their toned torsos have dominated movies and magazine spreads alike since it was legal to be shirtless in a movie, circa 1977, when Arnold Schwarzenegger invented being massive in Pumping Iron (per my deeply unofficial calculations). The culture has reacted accordingly: Abs are hot, and hot requires abs. Of course, there are different ab standards for different people: the “ideal” masculine abs come in a pack of six to eight, and the “ideal” feminine abs are toned but not ripped or anything (that would be way too threatening to gender roles!!!). It seems like the cultural focus on abs isn’t going anywhere. With the prophesied 2020 return of low-rise jeans fast approaching, and yet another celebrity—actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani—debuting his abs-tacular body transformation in advance of his Marvel movie debut, abs must be here to stay! Right?
Here’s the thing: while the photographic evidence of Nanjiani’s body transformation drew some predictable digital wolf whistles, it has also received a ton of flack online, some playful and some… less so. Buzzfeed dropped a quiz titled “Which Kumail Nanjiani Ab Are You?” and Vulture called Nanjiani “unsettlingly swole.” Meanwhile, Twitter users criticized Nanjiani for obscuring the methods he used to obtain his new physique and for reinforcing the idea that a comic book body (with proportions ranging from unrealistic to physically impossible) is a prerequisite for appearing in a comic book movie.
All of this, to me, points to a clear shift away from prizing abs above any other physical attribute, both in our partners and ourselves. People are already furious about the mere prospect of being forced back into a more stomach-centric pants style after luxuriating in the comfort of high-waisted pants for the past four or five years—and in November, fashion writer Rachel Syme predicted in a New Yorker article that we’re only going to make waists higher and higher... more evidence of the impending ab phase-out. Also, let’s be honest: A lot of us are spending more time than ever trying to cobble together some semblance of a healthy lifestyle in the midst of rising rates of stress and loneliness, an impending recession, job insecurity, and prohibitively expensive healthcare. That kind of triage work doesn’t leave a ton of time or energy for cultivating a tight bod.
Of course, it’s probably wishful thinking to believe that this attitude shift is an actual harbinger of the Absopocalypse. It’s extremely hard to envision a future where a toned tummy or sculpted abs fall so out of vogue that they become downright unattractive physical attributes. It’s also worth noting that the physical transformations of schlubby white actors like The Worst Chris (Pratt), Office Jim, and Seth Rogen (who I respect enough to call by his real name) were treated more like drool-inducing glow-ups and less like “Deflating Male Beauty Standards 101.” Hopefully, though, all the fuss just means that we’re finally moving to a place where we can acknowledge that having abs isn’t the only way to climb the pinnacle of Hot.
In 2009, the only dating apps were “websites.” Though the concept of online dating had been around for a while by the end of the previous decade, people were still a bit skeptical, dipping their toes into the scene like testing out a cold swimming pool. The OkCupid blog published posts filled with bits of guidance, a lot like the advice on how to talk to people online that’s stillroutinelypublished today.
The final post of the aughts, published in September 2009, offers advice on what, exactly, to say in a first message. Most of the tips still hold up today; online dating may have changed drastically over the past 10 years, but the way humans communicate romantic interest in one another is, mostly, the same. The insights are based on an OkCupid analysis of messages sent over its own interface, so they’re basically a reflection on how people communicated in 2009, rather than pithy advice on how to score a date. Almost all of the advice is normal and applicable today: “be literate;” “bring up specific interests;” “avoid physical compliments.” But one tip stands out as a relic from a different era: “Rule 5: If you’re a guy, be self-effacing,” the post reads. “ Awkward, sorry, apologize, kinda, and probably all made male messages more successful… A lot of real-world dating advice tells men to be more confident, but apparently hemming and hawing a little works well online.” Not to hit OkCupid’s harmless blog post with too much blame, but this tip reads like the harbinger of the Softboy era that dominated much of the 2010s.
The Softboy—a fuckboy who discusses his feelings and wears beanies, essentially—wasn’t formally documented until the middle of the decade, yet his cultural predecessors were abundant at the beginning of it. One of the highest grossing rom coms in 2009 was 500 Days of Summer, which introduced us to perhaps the proto-Softboy: Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a dude who wears sweater vests, doodles on his walls, and cries when he doesn’t get the girl. Before that, The O.C. gave us Seth Cohen, a hottie who fucks but who also listens to Bright Eyes. Earlier in the aughts, a number of people fell for Jim Carrey’s portrayal of Joel in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a guy who was some blend of “soft” and “just depressed.”
In the 2010s, the Softboy exploded. Men seemingly realized that openly brusque behavior and using people purely for sex wasn’t working anymore, and instead opted for gentler tactics. They identified the value of using emotions as a tool to lure people in, and in using un-firm language to make themselves seem less confident and perhaps more in need of attention and validation. In 2015, the definitive essay on Softboydom was published in Medium’s Human Parts: “The Fuckboy is perplexed that you were upset when he forgot to text you for three days then sent ‘what are you up to’ at last call. The Softboy knows this behavior is selfish and cruel, though his desire to get laid can trump this. He feels shame. He does it again.” The phrase slipped into mainstream culture, and Softboys were suddenly not just on screen, but in our DMs, our Tinder inboxes, our texts, on our dates... There are so many types of Softboys that we’ve since had to divide them into subcategories, a genus-species situation for human dudes.
The inevitable backlash hit in the latter half of the decade. The explosive reaction to Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person” in the New Yorker revealed how common this troubling, middling type of dude was. “The whole time, he was stroking her hair and trailing light kisses down her shoulder, as if he’d forgotten that ten minutes ago he’d thrown her around as if they were in a porno and growled, ‘I always wanted to fuck a girl with nice tits’ in her ear,” Roupenian wrote. “Then, out of nowhere, he started talking about his feelings for her.” Had we all been dating this guy, maybe after matching with him on an app? Reading the 2009 OKCupid suggestion to hem and haw now, with fresh 2019 eyes—eyes that are familiar with the conceit of the Softboy, the Cat Person guy, the male feminist wolf in sheep’s clothing, and all the other bad-man species identified in the past decade—sounds blaring alarms. “Hemming and hawing” is now not quite a red, but certainly red ish, flag online; a bumbling, unconfident-seeming man isn’t necessarily a good one.
It’s hard to imagine a Softboy existing in the wild in 2020; the type has been so thoroughly excavated, no one could reasonably be one (and get away with it) in the new decade. If anyone used the “self-effacement” tip from the 2009 OkCupid post now, they’d almost certainly be identified as a certain “type,” and not necessarily a good or successful one. The sort of message the OkCupid tip advises sending—“sorry if this is awkward but you seem kinda cute, maybe we should get a drink sometime?”—would send shivers down the educated, 2019 spine. That sort of “aw shucks” equivocating made sense in the years immediately after everyone learned about pickup artistry, but now it’s a gimmick that everyone sees directly through. Maybe (definitely) there are new ones on the horizon that haven’t yet been excavated and thoroughly exposed online. The “best” way to approach a potential date is always cycling, but the desire to hide intention behind pleasing language is evergreen.
The past year has felt like a peak in mega-budget world-spanning media spectacles that command our attention, one outrageous finale after another. On April 26, 2019, the film Avengers: Endgame was released in the United States. Less an original narrative than an accretion of capital, technology, and celebrity, it had a budget of $356 million.
By July, the movie — the closing of a phase in the vast Marvel Cinematic Universe — was the highest-grossing movie in the history of Hollywood; it has so far achieved a global box office of around $2.8 billion. A month later, on May 19, the final episode of Game of Thrones aired on HBO, the end of an eight-season run that began in 2011. 19.3 million people watched the episode, a record for the series. The latest Star Wars film will cap off the franchise’s third trilogy on December 20 and attract millions more viewers. But it’s not just the stories that are ending.
Two Concerns
This communal moment of mass culture has occasioned celebration as well as a bout of anxiety. We’re in the midst of the Streaming Wars, with so many different media products and platforms competing for our attention — Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, AppleTV+, and the still-to-come Peacock and HBO Max, to name but a few. Journalists and critics are worried that the huge popularity and sense of universality that Avengers and Game of Thrones achieved are now disappearing for good. The word often used to describe these omnipresent mass-entertainment products is “monoculture.”
The Ringer eulogized Game of Thronesas “the very last piece of TV monoculture” and Vulture “the last show we watch together.”“Monoculture is dead, or will die with Game of Thrones,” according to Lainey Gossip’s Elaine Lui. Now, “we watch what we like, and we cluster together with the people who also watch what we like.” Even the era of extensive recaps was pronounced over, if not the reign of prestige TV itself. We live in a “time of cultural fragmentation,” wrote Alex Shephard in the New Republic, arguing that not even the Nobel Prize for literature has survived as a representation of monoculture.
Within the monoculture obsession, there are two concerns. The first is that in the digital streaming era we have lost a perceived ability to connect over media products as reference points that everyone knows, the way that we used to discuss the weather or politics, at least in a bygone time before our realities were split by climate change and Fox News. The fear is that we exist in a fragmented realm of impenetrable niches and subcultures enabled by streaming media.
The second concern is that, because of the pressures of social media and the self-reinforcing biases of recommendation algorithms that drive streaming, culture is becoming more similar than different. We are worried that our digital niches cause a degree of homogenization, which the word monoculture is also used to describe.
“If Twitter controls publishing, we’ll soon enter a dreary monoculture that admits no book unless it has been prejudged and meets the standards of the censors,” Jennifer Senior wrote in a New York Times opinion piece about young-adult literature. Mass media has “been getting more mass,” wrote Farhad Manjoo, also in the Times, responding to the popularity of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” which went from a TikTok meme to one of the most popular pop songs ever made, at least according to its time on the charts.
“Despite the barrage of choice, more of us are enjoying more of the same songs, movies and TV shows,” Manjoo continued. The effect is happening across different cultural industries: “We’re returning to a media monoculture,” made up of corporatized, homogenized websites instead of smaller blogs, Darcie Wilder wrote on the Outline. Martin Scorsese echoed the complaint when he argued that Marvel movies “aren’t cinema” but instead bland, market-tested products without artistic integrity.
These two concerns appear in some ways irreconcilable, and yet they coexist. Is there less monoculture today, or is culture more mass than ever? Are we siloed within our own preferences or are we unable to escape the homogenized net-average, consuming all the same things?
The debate over monoculture seems to be less about our inherent desire for CGI dragons or superheroes than human connection and recognition — the assuaging of some existential loneliness induced by the internet. With streaming platforms like Netflix or Spotify, you never really know how many people are watching, hearing, or following the same things you are, so you’re never sure which media experiences are shared in common and which are not. That leaves us consumers feeling adrift.
I. FRAGMENTATION
The Meaning of Monoculture
Monoculture is more a messy symbol than an exact term. The Latin root “cultura” means cultivation. Monoculture in a scientific sense is an “area of farm land on which only one crop is grown or one type of animal is kept.” Much of industrialized farming is monoculture: think vast stretches of corn or wheat, or the undifferentiated green of a suburban lawn.
Monoculture might be efficient as far as agricultural output, but it’s also dangerous, decreasing diversity, depleting soil, and using more water than varied fields. By the early 19th century, “culture” moved from referring to plants to the cultivation of learning and taste, and by the 20th century it described the “collective customs and achievements of a people.”
Today, the word monoculture is also used to describe a monolithic culture: the range of artifacts, characters, voices, and stories that a specific demographic — Americans, for example — find recognizable and relatable. But the word also evokes a homogenized space, a Monocultural Cinematic Universe in which everything is bright, vapid, and family-friendly, and any whimpering of dissent is smoothed over into sameness: monotonous culture.
What Was the Monoculture?
The monoculture seems to refer to some ill-defined age of universality made up of everything from Johnny Carson hosting the Tonight Show to Friends, Seinfeld, and The Office — the 20th-century aegis of white, middlebrow American entertainment, usually starring white Americans. This was also the ascendant era of broadcast media in radio, film, and linear television (the term for cable and network TV that isn’t on-demand). Industry gatekeepers made top-down decisions about what content would be made and when it would be shown, resulting in a lack of diversity that is only now beginning to change.
Monoculture is a Pleasantville image of a lost togetherness that was maybe just an illusion in the first place, or a byproduct of socioeconomic hegemony. It wasn’t that everyone wanted to watch primetime Seinfeld, but that’s what was on, and it became universal by default.
Digital Monoculture
We are in the midst of determining if the kind of monoculture that thrived during the broadcast era can exist when many forms of media are opt-in: we can watch whatever we want, when we want. The “digital monoculture” could refer to the array of popular, recognizable reference points that have arisen and are accessed through the on-demand internet, whether it’s Game of Thrones or “Baby Shark.”
The universality that monoculture entails is valuable, because what everyone already knows is what they are likely to keep consuming — hence the overwhelming popularity of reboots and sequels. It’s also why Netflix paid $100 million in 2018 to keep Friendson its platform for another year (WarnerMedia later outbid Netflix, $85 million a year for five years, to put the show on HBO Max).
Big-budget productions try to worm material into the now-fragmented monocultural framework by manufacturing new universal reference points, as The Mandalorian has with its insta-meme Baby Yoda. Piggybacking on old monoculture is less risky than starting from scratch. The most successful example of digital-native monoculture might be Netflix’s Stranger Things, which merited the iconic public display of billboards in Times Square (not coincidentally, it’s also a show that references decades of pop culture).
Businesses turn their own intellectual property into self-reproducing mini-monocultures because monopolies are easiest to monetize. The streaming platforms and their various signature franchises form walled gardens, a metaphor that also recalls the scientific definition of monoculture: nothing else is allowed to grow there; there is no cross-pollination. Surely the monoculture isn’t quite dead if Netflix viewers have consumed a net 500 million hours of Adam Sandler movies.
Watching Together
More than a sheer volume of viewers, what monoculture entails is a feeling. Linear TV gave us a monocultural feeling because we knew millions, tens of millions, of other people were watching the same channel as us at the same time, though we couldn’t see them. While tuned in we felt connected to the “grid of 200 million,” the social community of American TV watchers that George W.S. Trow observed in his 1980 essay on television, Within the Context of No Context. (Social media is our new grid, and its fervent fandoms in part a response to the desire for more communal experience.)
More than a sheer volume of viewers, what monoculture entails is a feeling.
Streaming television lacks much of that feeling because it is on-demand and because the platforms are pointedly opaque about their metrics for the sake of protecting their business models. (Nielsen ratings, which publicly measure linear TV audiences, are only just starting to cover streaming services.)
The only way of knowing how many other people are consuming the latest season of Bojack Horseman at the same time you are is to check some other part of the internet, like searching a show’s hashtag on Twitter. This kind of asynchronicity is particularly deadly for talk shows, which Netflix has been struggling to produce. Maybe the format was optimized for linear TV, sparking watercooler chat that you didn’t have to preface with the streaming-era refrain, “Are you watching _______?” The answer is rarely yes.
Streaming “forces a little bit more evangelism,” investor Hunter Walk told me. Walk is the co-founder of the venture-capital firm Homebrew, which invests in digital platforms, and a commentator on new-media consumption habits. “If you’re watching something early or first, you’re going to be the carrier of that to your friends.” The feeling digital media induces is, “‘It’s my job to get them to watch it so we can talk about it,’” he continued. We all become the programming head of our own virtual TV network, deciding what gets airtime and what doesn’t.
If monoculture depends on this feeling of watching together, then streaming makes it more difficult to establish, because we watch different things at different paces for different reasons. Though widespread popularity is clearly still possible, there’s a newfound distinction between media’s content — its subject matter — and its context — the social environment, or lack thereof, in which we consume it. Certain shows rely on generating a public discourse while others thrive without it, or find fans only in an online niche. As Walk put it: “Some things you watch just because your friends are watching it; some things you watch even if your friends aren’t watching it. I don’t give a shit what my friends think about Westworld. I need the sub-Reddit that’s going to unpack the foreshadowing.”
Monoculture is a subjective, shifting frame of reference, not a default reality. Walk’s points underline how we now create our own communities around consuming and discussing particular media. On Twitter, I feel like Succession has fully saturated the discourse and become inescapable, but elsewhere, linear TV’s This Is Us is the height of popularity.
At its peak after the 2018 Super Bowl, This Is Us had some 27 million viewers in one day, while Succession only hit one million during its recent season-two finale. A show about mean rich people isn’t exactly universal, but it gets talked about more intensely in certain media-dense environments and thus takes on the aspects of active monoculture, where This Is Us has faded in coverage from magazines and entertainment websites, though many more people watch it.
A Chart of Digital Media Consumption
When we talk about monoculture, it usually includes content that is widely consumed, and socially consumed. We could arrange various modes of digital media consumption on a chart, with a horizontal axis of the scale at which the content was designed to exist (trying to appeal to many people, or a smaller group?) and a vertical axis of the context in which the content is consumed (do you actively discuss it with others, or watch it privately?). We can fill it in with a few linear and streaming TV shows:
In the top-right corner, Social-Mass, is the relevant monoculture, the stuff that is actively creating its own communities of interest and public discussion. In the lower-right, Intimate-Mass represents the mundane monoculture, the productions that are already familiar comforts. The top-left is the first draft of monoculture, the Social-Niche content that a smaller demographic of advance tastemakers pore over intensely. The bottom-left is content consumed predominantly as a personal pleasure, which might never make it into the public sphere.
Shows and movies (or any cultural products) can move across the categories over time, and exist on a spectrum of points between them. Fleabag, for example, had a gradual movement from Intimate-Niche to Social-Niche to Social-Mass — the hot-priest-meme stage.
Linear TV has an incentive to keep as many viewers as possible from changing the channel, which confines its content to the right side of the chart: shows you can’t miss without feeling left out and shows you don’t mind rewatching if you stumble upon them. The top-right, must-watch products usually fall to the bottom-right over time. We get bored of them, though nostalgia maintains some appeal. (Fleabagwrapped up just before it fully succumbed to its popularity and became tiresome.)
Watching Separately
Digital streaming can better occupy the left side of the chart, supplying content that we can discuss in small, dispersed communities online or simply watch by ourselves. (For me, that purpose is filled by the soothing Japanese reality show Terrace House; I don’t need everyone to like it, and I know they never will.) Netflix’s never-ending supply of food shows that are 75 percent slow-motion B-roll — Chef’s Table, Taco Chronicles, The Chef Show, Street Food — demonstrate its commitment to content we barely have to pay attention to or talk about at all. You could call it ambient television, the obverse of big-budget monoculture. David Chang’s latest addition to the Ambient Netflix genre, Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, is what you would get if you recorded a celebrity podcast with their mouth full.
Maybe it’s not that we have less monoculture today; it’s that we’re more aware of everything else in the other quadrants of the chart. They appear as a threat to the old regime, which was accustomed to manufacturing monoculture quickly and easily through the content monopolies of broadcast media. Studios, directors, and producers of the past were better able to dictate our tastes because there were no other convenient options for on-demand entertainment.
Maybe it’s not that we have less monoculture today; it’s that we’re more aware of everything else in the other quadrants of the chart.
Martin Scorsese critiqued the Marvel movies’ lack of communal social context as well as their artistic content: “To be in a packed house in one of the old theaters watching Rear Window was an extraordinary experience: It was an event created by the chemistry between the audience and the picture itself, and it was electrifying.” The director is mourning the IRL universality that his work — that by no means emerged from a universal perspective — was able to achieve under the old system. He mourns his ability to impose his auteurship on massive audiences.
Scorsese complains about the homogenization of “market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified” content. Yet in terms of representation and access, for people who aren’t Martin Scorsese, this change feels like a step forward. The range of widely available mass media no longer represents the vision of only one demographic group. The retro-monoculture of Goodfellas, or Friends, or Seinfeld, is just one choice among many. But what do our other choices look like?
II. HOMOGENIZATION
Jazz
Rather than the monoculture dictated by singular auteurs or industry gatekeepers, we are moving toward a monoculture of the algorithm. Recommendation algorithms — on Netflix, TikTok, YouTube, or Spotify — are responsible for much of how we move through the range of on-demand streaming media, since there’s too much content for any one user to parse on their own. We can make decisions, but they are largely confined to the range of options presented to us. The homepage of Netflix, for example, offers only a window into the platform’s available content, often failing to recommend what we actually want. We can also opt out of decision-making altogether and succumb to autoplay.
Spotify in particular demonstrates the effects of algorithmic culture, since the decision of which song to listen to or whether to interrupt the stream happens so much more often than a TV show or movie. For example, I started an album on Spotify by Bill Evans while cooking dinner for friends. The album continued playing for hours. Except it wasn’t the album; it was a series of tracks that sound more or less like the album — syncopated piano, upright bass, brushed drums — weaving between tracks by Evans and other jazz musicians in a pleasantly monotonous wash. I barely registered the change until everyone left and I went to my laptop to turn it off, noticing the playlist that accrued, filled with artists’ names that I promptly forgot.
The Problem with Automatic Suggestions
The jazz monotony is passive: Since Spotify’s radio function is automated, I can consume more music without thinking about it. Without anyone thinking about it, in fact, except the recommendation algorithm making its calculations and supplying the next song. My own private monoculture builds up under the heading of Bill Evans-esque jazz, a kind of jazz that the algorithm delimits for me. We media consumers end up smoothly siloed into how a recommendation algorithm has predefined a particular genre or medium, like the Plinko game in Price Is Right: the chip takes a random path down the board, but ends up in one of just a few slots. The algorithm’s definition is often wrong, or at least incomplete.
In September 2019, the country music star Martina McBride attempted to create a country playlist on Spotify. The platform can automatically recommend songs to add to a playlist; in this case, it suggested 14 pages of songs by male country artists before it came up with a single woman. McBride was shocked, posting on Instagram: “Is it lazy? Is it discriminatory? Is it tone deaf? Is it out of touch?”
Jada Watson, a professor at the University of Ottawa who studies country radio airplay, tried the same experiment and took 12 refreshes to get a woman. Even though, for research purposes, Watson only uses Spotify to listen to women musicians, she found that: “Within the first 200 songs (19 refreshes), only 6 songs (3%) by women and 5 (3%) by male-female ensembles were included (all emerging after 121 songs by male artists).” 121 songs! Shouldn’t a well-trained algorithm know her obvious preferences?
Contrary to our expectations of personalization, Spotify’s playlist-recommendation function only takes into account the title of the playlist, not the habits of the individual user. According to the algorithm, country = men, an equation that not even a playlist titled “Country Music By Musicians With Vaginas” could shake. Spotify had created its own homogenous definition of the genre, a “very narrow perspective of what country music means,” as Watson told me.
Technology users are increasingly aware of how biased algorithms can be, but as the rampant sharing of Spotify end-of-year recaps shows, we still have a general expectation that algorithmic recommendations at least reflect our own taste. Yet the country-music playlist problem demonstrates how individualization fails, or is more about marketing than actual technology.
We all get driven toward the same things. “You expect it to be an equal playing field or a space where you have a greater variety of choice, but it actually looked like any old country radio playlist,” Watson said. This both immediately decreases diversity and operates at the level of perception: If we think we are getting relatively unbiased, data-backed recommendations, then we’re even more likely to absorb the way an algorithm defines a genre and accept it as all that exists.
Addendum: A Holistic Index of Taste
Every recommendation algorithm is different, and some are better or more complex than others. The veteran music app Pandora now indexes podcasts as well as songs; the two data-sets are also cross-referenced, so your podcast-listening data can be applied to your music recommendations in order to improve them.
Oscar Celma, Pandora’s head of research, told me about these “cross-domain recommendations.” People who listen to “The Bible: Son of God” podcast also listen to Casting Crowns and Chris Tomlin. People who like true crime podcasts listen to Five Finger Death Punch and Post Malone. People who listen to “Fresh Air” like Norah Jones and Van Morrison (duh). “Six Minutes,” a podcast for children, correlates with Kidz Bop and Taylor Swift. Amazon also benefits from this kind of holistic data set: The more it knows about what you buy, the better it knows which TV shows you’re likely to watch on its streaming service, applying one marketplace to the other and forming a more perfect recommendation algorithm.
Data Drives Sameness
Watson described how the country radio charts, like Billboard’s Hot Country Songs list, which includes streaming, “have become incredibly homogenous, not just in gender but with songs that stay number one the entire year.” She sees the homogenization of music as being caused by data — a consequence of the fact that streaming, radio, and record companies can access more information about their listeners than ever, faster than ever.
“Now that everything’s digital, we have data every minute of every hour of every day,” Watson said. “In the past it was very manual, reported over phone or paper — that’s really slow.” On the broadcaster side, the data motivate snap business judgments: “If a particular style is really driving ratings of your service up, whether radio or streaming, you’ll want to continue to play that kind of artist, based on fear of loss of ratings.” On the label side, the data create an excuse for homogenization. “If artist X is doing really well with a particular style, or a particular production value, then a label might do the same thing with artist Y,” explained Watson.
These are not new strategies, of course; culture is always driven toward copycatting by money and the hope of a larger audience. But the difference is how fast the iterative loop happens, and how algorithmic recommendations intensify the effect across cultural areas: music, television, interior design, or even plastic surgery.
We thought the long tail of the internet would bring diversity; instead we got sameness and the perpetuation of the oldest biases, like gender discrimination. The best indicator of what gets recommended is what’s already popular, according to the investor Matthew Ball, a former head of strategy at Amazon Studios. “Netflix isn’t really trying to pick individual items from obscurity and get you to watch it,” Ball said. “The feedback mechanisms are reiterating a certain homogeneity of consumption.”
An Updated Definition of Monoculture for 2020
Instead of discrete, brand-name cultural artifacts, monoculture is now culture that appears increasingly similar to itself wherever you find it. It exists in the global morass of Marvel movies designed to sell equally well in China and the United States; the style of K-Pop, in music and performance, spreading outside of Korea; or the profusion of recognizably minimalist indie cafes from Australia to everywhere else. These are all forms of monoculture that don’t rely on an enforced, top-down sameness, but create sameness from the bottom up. Maybe the post-internet monoculture is now made up of what is aesthetically recognizable even if it is not familiar — we quickly feel we understand it even if we don’t know the name of the specific actor, musician, show, or director.
Instead of discrete, brand-name cultural artifacts, monoculture is now culture that appears increasingly similar to itself wherever you find it.
A monocultural product reinforces our established range of taste-signifiers rather than challenging them or adding something new. Is it better to choose between a few things that everyone knows, or between 100 things that share a fundamental similarity, algorithmically sorted into a you-may-also-like category? The latter may not be that much more authentic, original, or diverse than the former. In fact, it often feels oppressive, as if there isn’t much of a choice at all. By the metric of similarity, we have more monoculture than ever.
Streambait and Spotify-core
Each digital platform is its own monoculture, with a homogenized style optimized for the structure of the platform and the algorithms that serve its recommendations. There are monocultures of Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter (see all the “RT this with the worst thing you ever ate for breakfast” tweets). The sameness creates an aura of communal recognizability. The writer Liz Pelly coined the term “streambait” in a 2018 essay to refer to “this idea of creating music that people will stream and continue to stream, similar to the concept of clickbait,” she told me in an interview.
A related label is “Spotify-core,” used by the New York Times journalist Jon Caramanica to describe a song by the virtual Instagram influencer Miquela. Miquela’s 2017 track “Not Mine” is characteristic of the style as it now stands: soft vocals, an airy backbeat like the echoes from a club, and slight acoustic touches. Pleasant, ignorable, and instantly forgettable — not great but not the kind of thing that would make you pause the stream.
Streambait’s stars range from pop favorites — Billie Eilish and Lana del Rey — to more indie streaming grist like Big Thief, Clairo, and Cuco, who have all made it to mainstream attention via the internet. Spotify’s narcotized Chill Hits playlist, with over 5.1 million followers, is the genre’s breeding ground.
Like airplay on a major radio station, when a song hits a big playlist, it gets popular, promotes the musician to new listeners, and makes money. “Labels have been incentivized to either make music that fits on playlists or prioritize music that works on these playlists,” Pelly said — adapting to the Spotify monoculture like a goldfish to a pond. Optimization comes at the expense of originality. According to Pelly, streambait “is similar to the way that clickbait has a negative impact on journalism, when editorial decisions are made based on what is popular.”
“There’s a negative impact on art when such a high value is placed on what is popular,” she said. “Popularity is not a good metric for deciding the value of art.”
Is What Is Popular Necessarily Good?
Relying on algorithms to dictate our culture means evaluating things on the basis of popularity, engagement, scale, and speed. Yet we already know that what is popular is not necessarily good, and what is good is not necessarily popular. On top of that, the data provided by Netflix and Spotify are biased, shaped by their proprietary algorithms, which are black boxes, not transparent and precise evaluations of human taste. With social and streaming media, there might be more ways around the gatekeepers of the past. But algorithms are the new gatekeepers. Their parameters are still set by a small group: not Hollywood producers, but white, male engineers and data scientists.
Relying on algorithms to dictate our culture means evaluating things on the basis of popularity, engagement, scale, and speed.
What gets surfaced is still a small subset of what exists, and it doesn’t get surfaced in a democratic or transparent way, as Galaxie 500’s Damon Krukowski discovered looking at his band’s Spotify account. Their volume of plays from “Spotify algorithmic playlists” has been slowly declining, but the platform gives no reason or explanation for the change. “Which leaves us, too, a passive participant in all this,” Krukowski wrote. Passivity is not a good quality for making or consuming art.
Mono-Monoculture
The critics giving Avengers and Game of Thrones the epitaph of Last Universal Content are wrong: Today’s form of monoculture is both larger in scale and less human, more mechanically automated, than ever before. Culture is now Big Data. Just what we have lost in the transition from human to machine tastemakers is still bearing out.
There seems to be more opportunity for diversity (anything can theoretically go viral) and yet the cultural artifacts that do become mainstream appear relentlessly optimized for the digital platforms of the attention economy. Take “Old Town Road,” for example. It’s a song by the creator of a popular Twitter account that was primed to spread on TikTok, then embraced as a meme, and then made even more famous by a preexisting country-music celebrity. The song itself is fine, but the most interesting thing about it is how it’s a product of the structures that now govern our digital culture.
Instead of worrying about the loss of monoculture, I’m more concerned that there isn’t enough room for products or projects (or even places) that are notmemes, that aren’t pre-optimized for sharing or scaling. In the end I fall more on Scorsese’s side of the argument, though I wouldn’t wish for any more Scorsese: The non-homogenized alternatives to the mainstream become harder and harder to find. As we grow more accustomed to the algorithmic monoculture, allowing it to occupy our senses, we might lose our understanding of, or our taste for, anything else.
Lofi Monocultural Beats to Exist to
If you want a vision of the future of culture, imagine an infinite playlist of lofi hip hop radio - beats to study/relax to, in all media — forever. Picture the ambient-music YouTube channel’s aesthetic applied to everything else: anodyne, blameless, meaningless, boring, designed only to occupy time. Form will outweigh content’s authorship, originality, or artistry. The future will be to the present as TikTok is to prestige television.
Human™ Culture
Digital-platform companies seem to be realizing that they need to move away from totally automatic recommendations, or at least appear to do so. They are turning to human “curators” as a way to break from algorithmic sameness and demonstrate that there’s still a personal (that is to say monocultural) connection when consuming digital content. They are deploying humanity as branding.
Earlier this year, Netflix began testing playlists curated by “experts on the company’s creative teams” with themes like “Artful Adventures” and “Critics Love These Shows.” Facebook is hiring curators — “seasoned journalists” — for its News Tab in order to fight misinformation. You shouldn’t let “computers decide what you want,” the CEO of Disney Bob Iger said during a Wall Street Journal technology conference. HBO’s latest advertising campaign is titled “Recommended by Humans,” featuring human fans explaining why they like the human HBO shows that they have watched with their human eyes. Preference appears to be shifting away from the algorithmic, similar to how consumers might prize handmade goods over mass-manufactured ones.
These are attempts to reassure us that our culture is not yet fully robotic, that it is still meaningful. In the end, we shouldn’t just want to consume things that are fully engineered to attract our attention, which gets converted into money. We should actively seek out elements of messiness and magic, serendipity that pure data can’t provide. As HBO’s head of programming Casey Bloys told the Los Angeles Times: “Our shows will never exist just to exist; they all have something to say about the world.”
Bloys gave the example of Succession: The show was motivated by his own personal desire to see a resonant story about family, not some abstract, algorithmic calculation. He made the decision not to hire established celebrity actors for the show, which would mathematically increase its chances of attention, but to start from scratch with lesser-known talent: “At HBO, we make our own stars,” Bloys said.
The result is a successful example of human taste, something that we didn’t quite recognize and didn’t yet know we wanted (the opposite of how Netflix claimed in 2013 that it made House of Cards because of Big Data). Succession was an unhomogenized surprise that could be on its way to becoming new monoculture.
The Value of Surprise
Art’s deepest impact comes when it is least expected. In contrast, algorithmic recommendations lead us down a path of pleasant monotony: a looming monoculture of the similar. To resist it, we should embrace obscurity, difficulty, diversity, and strangeness as just as important as recognizability or universality.
These are the qualities that need most to be preserved against the frictionless consumption pushed by our automated feeds. Otherwise, any new, surprising content that enters the machine of digital monoculture will quickly have its innovative quirks stripped and copied, scaled up and repeated until they become cliches. They will be incorporated into a constantly updated global homogeneity that possesses the sheen of familiarity but no substance beyond style.
III. RESISTING THE MONOCULTURE
Introspection
Reading the author Caleb Crain’s recent novel Overthrow, I was particularly struck by a single line: “It’s like there’s a sumptuary law against introspection,” the character Elspeth pronounces after getting badmouthed on the internet. (Sumptuary laws are rules governing consumption, often limiting what lower classes can buy or wear.) Elspeth considers how thinking too much, or being too self-aware, might be cast as an excessive, illegal luxury.
Overthrow is, in part, about the uncanniness of post-internet life, when you are never sure when you’re being surveilled and what some distant server might know about you, or which thoughts or desires could be subconscious digital implants rather than your own. The novel’s protagonists resist the numbing effects of automated surveillance capitalism through their participation in an Occupy-esque protest, deploying Tarot cards and (perhaps) gentle mind-reading powers to resist the invasive specter of technology.
The algorithm is a replacement for our internal monologues and our judgements about what we want to consume.
I called Crain to talk about what he meant by this antipathy of introspection. “We’re in this moment where just being alone and by yourself and having your own thoughts that maybe you don’t share is almost frowned upon,” he said. There is a pressure to make every statement as unambiguous as possible: to be a huge fan of the new thing. The monoculture actually dominates public discourse, an effect intensified by the media industry’s decline and the lack of opportunities for well-paid criticism, according to Crain: “Unless you’re weighing in on the big cultural product of the moment, who cares what you think?”
The algorithm is a replacement for our internal monologues and our judgements about what we want to consume. Streaming’s passivity is different from linear TV, but in the end, it’s still passive. In a 2017 interview, the author, critic, and former Twitter celebrity Teju Cole likewise described social media as “a monster that feeds on noise” that “could not allow for a kind of distance, silence, refocusing of energies.” In a recent essay, Zadie Smith critiqued the “digital maw” that digests our language and spits it back at us, warped and commodified. For Smith, the excess of data forms a “shadow text” that replaces human culture with its uncanny facsimile.
Under these conditions, pursuing obscurity instead of attempting to participate in the monoculture becomes a defense mechanism and a survival strategy.
“I personally like the idea of hiding out, finding your own rabbit hole. I think I believe in making yourself irrelevant as an almost spiritual quest,” Crain told me. “Every time you open a book that nobody has recommended, you hope that you’ll find that secret voice that you needed to hear, that nobody could have told you was there.”
The magic is still in what the algorithm can’t surface, what data doesn’t touch — the introspective space in which you can develop your own opinions in private before making them public commodities and measuring them against the mainstream. Because once something enters the cycle of digital monoculture, its essence will, inevitably, be lost. So enjoy it while you can.
Bathroom Rembrandt
The desire for monoculture is understandable, though its disappearance is more perception than reality. Art is communal. We want to connect with other people over experiences that we share in common. But just as important is being alone, having a unique encounter — not seamlessly recommended or autoplayed — with something that another person created, and then gauging your deepest emotional response. The internet makes this more difficult, even as it makes sharing (or superficially liking) things easier and faster.
I often think of something the New Yorker’s longtime art critic Peter Schjeldahl said in a 2007 interview, a kind of manifesto for his criticism: “Give me a Rembrandt in a subway station toilet and a flashlight and I’m happy.” I take this to mean that the delivery mechanism of culture doesn’t have to be slick and seamless, nor does the way we consume it. The masterpiece doesn’t have to be shown off in a white-walled gallery and the viewer handed an espresso in a porcelain cup. It is worth a struggle to access, Schjeldahl argued; perhaps the struggle, the precarious intimacy of the experience, makes worthwhile art shine even more.
Rembrandt died in 1669, impoverished, in obscurity. And yet it is his late work, the deeply luminous portraits with scumbled brushstrokes, completely unpopular with his contemporaries, that strikes us most today. It took centuries for the paintings to become mainstream. The process was neither fast nor convenient, though it may now seem like a foregone conclusion.
Digital media, by contrast, prioritizes immediate engagement over the slow blooming of art. I get the sense that today’s algorithms would prioritize Deep Dream patterns — a memetic style without content — over late Rembrandt. The danger of prioritizing the monoculture is that we might not get as many Rembrandts in the future.
Watching Separately, Together
Instead of taking the place of linear television’s monoculture, the streaming-media internet can, at its best, be more like a digital permaculture: an ecosystem of smaller platforms and bigger; smaller projects and bigger; and artists both famous and not, all sustaining each other. The anxiety comes more from the ways that we find and share the things that we’re interested in.
At a moment when culture is indeed more “mass” than ever, accepting the freedom of going outside of what’s already popular can be scary. But if we don’t take the risk, the other option is boredom, the boredom of having too much content and none of it interesting enough.
Thanks to Till Janczukowicz of Idagio, Penelope Bartlett of Criterion, David Turner, Samantha Culp, Kelly Loudenberg, Nick Seaver, and Erika Hapke for other conversations that informed this piece.
Deep fakes, influencers, viral fashion – we live in a world unrecognisable from the one we stood in ten years ago. As a chaotic decade comes to a close, we're speaking to the people who helped shape the last ten years and analysing the cultural shifts that have defined them. Explore the decade on our interactive timeline here, or head here to check outhellip;
O párroco de varias parroquias do municipio coruñés de Zas, Franciso Rafael Gómez-Canoura, natural de Viveiro, chamou "manda de porcas" ás feministas na súa conta de Twitter nunha mensaxe que foi borrado pero cuxas capturas circulan polas redes sociais.
Ademais, tamén cualificou de parvo "" aos votantes do BNG despois de que o deputado nacionalista Néstor Rego non participase na rolda de consultas do rei Felipe VIN. "¿Por que teño eu que soportar que unha manda de porcas dígame 'ou violador é ti' ('o violador es ti')? As violadoras sodes vós que intentades forzar as nosas conciencias'.", publicou o pasado 12 de decembro na súa conta de Twitter o párroco Gómez-Canoura, que decidiu resetear a súa conta nesta rede social.
Ese mesmo día, o cura tamén tuiteó sobre a rolda de consultas do rei Felipe para a investidura no Estado: "Eu son moi monárquico, máis que ningún de vós, moito máis. Pero o Rei é idiota ao designar ao Dr. Sánchez. Vai na súa contra".
Ademais, cualificou de parvo "" aos votantes do BNG despois de que o seu deputado nas Cortes, Néstor Rego, decidise non acudir ao Palacio da Zarzuela para ser recibido polo monarca no marco da rolda de consultas para a investidura: "A deputada do BNG pola Coruña (sic) di que non se reúne co Rei porque non é unha figura democrática... ¿Os que a votastes xa sabedes que sodes parvos ou queredes máis explicación?".
Con respecto a un tuit meu que anda polas redes, debo dicir que a súa redacción foi en quente, é inapropiado e desafortunado. Perdón a cantos se sentiron ofendidos, non era a miña intención.
Sempre estiven coa igualdade e contra todo tipo de violencia.
O PÁRROCO PIDE DESCULPAS. Este martes, tras o borrado de todas as mensaxes publicadas ata a data, o sacerdote indicou nun tuit que decidiu empezar "de cero leste nova conta, xa que algunhas cousas foron mal".
Precisamente, preguntado por Europa Press sobre as súas palabras, o párroco pediu "desculpas" aos aludidos e remitiuse a outro tuit no que asegura que a reacción foi "en quente" e cualifica a súa publicación de inapropiada "e desafortunada".
"Con respecto a un tuit meu que anda polas redes, debo dicir que a súa redacción foi en quente, é inapropiado e desafortunado. Perdón a cantos se sentiron ofendidos, non era a miña intención", manifestou a través da mesma rede social este párroco, que exerce en nove parroquias da zona de Zas.
O alcalde de Zas lamenta as "desafortunadas" declaracións do cura
Pola súa banda, preguntado por Europa Press polas palabras do párroco, o alcalde de Zas, Manuel Muiño (BNG), cualificou de bastante "desafortunadas" as afirmacións escritas polo párroco.
"As diferentes formas de pensar, as ideas, sempre que se comuniquen con respecto caben dentro da democracia", manifestou o rexedor, que considerou que, neste caso, insúltase" tanto ás feministas como aos votantes do BNG.
"Son insultos a persoas que pensan diferente", incidiu o político, que pediu "respecto" ao colectivo feminista e recordou as distintas discriminacións que sofren as mulleres. "é un tema moi serio que non se debe tratar de forma banal", apuntou.
Ademais, en canto aos "insultos" propiciados aos votantes do BNG, tamén pediu "respecto dunha" decisión "entendible e respectable", como é o feito de que o Bloque Nacionalista Galego optase por non acudir á rolda de consultas co Rei Felipe VI.
"Insúltase ás persoas que optaron por unha determinada opción política, é moi desafortunado", incidiu o rexedor, que con todo, considerou que o Concello "non ten nada que pedir explicacións" xa que a quen llas debe formular é "ás propias feministas" e "ao BNG".
Christmas dinner is the most ambitious roast of the year. Occupying a unique space between total maximalism (it’s Christmas) and diligently observed tradition (British people hate enjoying themselves), there is much debate over exactly which foods belong on the plate. Do you stick with the classic turkey/sprouts/roasties combo, or go more left-field with a mushroom Wellington? And what about Yorkshire puddings? Also: Bread sauce, please discuss.
People have very different views about Christmas dinner so, because I am a scientist, I conducted some thorough research to confirm once and for all the foods that truly make up a Christmas dinner.
METHODOLOGY
I wrote out a Google Doc of all the things I could think of that you can possibly have on a Christmas dinner and then got my colleagues to cast votes for each item. I then very quickly began ignoring those votes, because I noticed that someone had legitimately voted for "chicken" in the meat section.
Anyway, come on then:
MEAT
TURKEY The big fella, the main event, the Tony Soprano of the table. Even as a vegan, I can firmly state that the turkey (real or vegetarian alternative!) occupies a Christ-like level of importance. There would be no Christmas without Him.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Unequivocally, yes.
BEEF AND/OR HAM I come from an Irish family where there’d be an average of one joint of meat on the table per person. So to me, it’s not really Christmas if I don’t feel like I’m being smothered by the aroma of roasted flesh. However when I polled my colleagues, there were only two votes for beef and none for ham. So, what’s the truth????
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Non-essential but don’t tell my nan I said that.
PIGS IN BLANKETS Kind of like the Sharon Corr to the Andrea Corr of the turkey on a Christmas dinner, the P-in-Bs provide vital support by harmonising with the star. I will say, however, that the bastardisation of the pig-in-blanket form over the last few years (you can now get two metre-long P-in-Bs ffs) is a real step back for the P-in-B. Its classic form should be respected.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Yeah, if you’re a meat-eater. Take it from me, the vegan ones are dogshit.
VEGAN ALTERNATIVES
NUT ROAST Not sure if you’re aware, but veganism is a thing. It's important, therefore, to also consider the vegetarian mains that can find their way onto the roast – usually to placate the one little shit in the family who watched a documentary about climate change and renounced cheese. Before veganism went mainstream, the choice was limited to: nut roast. Otherwise known as a loaf of nuts. Vegans would sadly choke it down, pouncing on every possible spare roast potato for comfort, resenting everyone. An apt Christmas food, but rarely an enjoyable one.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Not if you don’t hate yourself.
FAKE MEAT If Christmas dinner is about indulgence to the point of giving yourself a bathroom problem, then this privilege should not be reserved for meat eaters. Present me with the thing they call "Tofurky" and let me make my own destiny.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Regrettably for stomachs everywhere, yes.
POTATO
ROAST POTATO Since this one is a no-brainer, I just want to take a second to remind you of how good – how crispy, then how fluffy, all that delicious oil coating the inside of your mouth – that first bite of roast p is. God’s own potato.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? As long as there is breath in my body, and for the eternity after that too.
MASH Here is where we come to the first real contention of the list (unless you’re a nut roast ultra in which case, don’t you have a jigsaw to be doing or something?) Mashed potato on Christmas dinner is a hotly contested concept, but as I see it, mash is simply another indulgence on the most indulgent meal of the year (if you don’t think mash is class then you’re not putting enough butter in.) Therefore, the sides of the argument can be vaguely sketched as such:
Only roasts: Wee guys, southerners
Roasts and mash: Henry VIII-esque lords, top shaggers
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Yes but only for legends who can fucking well handle it.
VEG
SPROUTS Vegetables are the underdogs of Christmas dinner, usually because they aren't cooked correctly. Which brings me to sprouts, a veritable king of vegetables, but much maligned because most people only boil them, which is a heartbreaking waste. Chop your sprouts in half, fry them in olive oil, salt, pepper, and maybe a little bit of garlic (add bacon – real or vegan – if ya nasty) and cook til they’re browned, and then tell me they do not belong.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Absolutely.
PARSNIPS Parsnips are that person who your mates are mates with and are always talking about as if they’re so fun and interesting and kind – ”Oh man, I love parsnips so much. Parsnips does such a funny impression of Pam from Gavin and Stacey. Do you know what Parsnips got me for Christmas? A Gucci bag. I like the novelty hair slides you got me too though!!” – but who you just really can’t get on board with. So you just pretend to like them even though you actually think they’re a bit of a disingenuous prick that doesn’t even go that nicely on the dinner and quite frankly isn’t that enjoyable texturally.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Begrudgingly, yes.
PEAS As much as a Christmas dinner is generally an exercise in chucking everything in the house at a plate, some lines do have to be drawn. One of those lines, unfortunately, is peas. It’s hard to explain why this is, because on a normal roast it’s not unusual to see a pea. But having peas on a Christmas dinner is just sort of… wrong, like calling your mum by her first name.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? No.
CARROTS Carrots are fundamentally unsatisfying, and yet they must be on the Christmas dinner, because it’s the rules. Their presence is the Christmas food equivalent of going on a Tinder date you agreed to a while ago, despite knowing you wouldn’t fancy the person, like, at all.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? *Sigh* I suppose it might be alright when I’ve had a drink.
CABBAGE Whether red or green, cabbage is an earthy delight, and other than sprouts, it is the only vegetable to have actually earned its place on the dinner by tasting nice, rather than getting it via some sort of inherited wisdom, as if Christmas dinner is the House of Lords or something.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER?: Yes!
CAULIFLOWER CHEESE I respect cauliflower cheese because it is a dish that takes the question, “How do I make something extremely plain and boring into an artery-clogging mess?” and honestly just fucking runs off with it. In that way, it’s deeply in the spirit of Christmas dinner. I’m worried it might be a bit too deranged though.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? If you have a can as soon as you wake up on Christmas Day then it’s allowed.
BROCCOLI See: peas.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? No.
SAUCES
GRAVY No need to even get into this one.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Duh.
BREAD SAUCE I have to admit I don’t know what bread sauce is but “a creamy sauce made of milk and thickened with breadcrumbs” sounds like baby food so I’m saying no.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? If you are a baby.
CRANBERRY SAUCE Not for me personally, but I can see how the sweetness cuts through what is otherwise a fairly savoury dining situation.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Sure.
SIDES
STUFFING Yes because it’s good on the sandwiches the next day.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? S A N D W I C H E S.
YORKSHIRE PUDDING I left this one until the end because it is famously divisive. From what I can gather, people crow about how Yorkshire puddings are only meant to go alongside roast beef, and therefore enjoy depriving themselves of the most objectively delicious thing you can have on any roast dinner. Now as we’ve seen, there are some elements of the Christmas dinner that are purely about tradition. But quite honestly, the seductiveness of the Yorkshire pudding – crisp, soft, then oily – is too much to resist. The resolution to the Yorkshire pudding debate is simply thus: give yourself over to absolute pleasure.
DOES IT GO ON THE CHRISTMAS DINNER? Yeah stop being a fucking masochist, it’s Christmas.
THE DEFINITIVE LIST OF EVERYTHING THAT GOES ON A CHRISTMAS DINNER
The essentials are: turkey or fake meat alternative, pigs-in-blankets, roast potatoes, sprouts, parsnips, carrots, cabbage, gravy, stuffing, Yorky p. Add mash, cranberry sauce, cauliflower cheese, and another meat if you’re a madhead. *Bangs gavel*
Entre as 2.036 prazas docentes anunciadas ningunha é da especialidade de lingua portuguesa. A Lei Paz Andrade, aprobada no 2014, instaba ao Goberno galego a un "aumento constante e regular do número de prazas da especialidade". O colectivo de Docentes de Portugués, A Mesa, Agal e AGLP reclaman a súa inclusión na convocatoria definitiva
Era mayo de 1940 cuando las tropas nazis tomaban el control de losPaíses Bajos tras la rendición del Gobierno local. Las atrocidades del ejército alemán pronto se dejaron ver, con la persecución y asesinato de los judíos locales, pero una en concreto sería fundamental en la historia: un oficial nazi acabó a golpes con un bebé ante la mirada de sus padres y sus hermanos: Truus Oversteegen, que vio la escena por casualidad, le iba a matar de un tiro en la cabeza.
El terror que el ejército nazi provocó en la población neerlandesa dio lugar a que pronto se formara un nutrido grupo de choque, conocido como la Resistencia. Muchos jóvenes no dudaron en unirse a ella, aunque en muchos casos solo realizaban labores residuales como correo o seguimiento visual, pues las armas eran harina de otro costal. Pero tres mujeres iban a pasar a la historia por formar parte de este grupo: las hermanas Truus y Freddie Oversteegen y Hannie Schaft.
Las tres chicas eran amigas desde pequeñas y las atrocidades de los nazis pronto les convencieron de participar en la resistencia. Muy unidas desde siempre, aquella escena que presenció Truus Oversteegen las cambió definitivamente, y decidieron volverse mucho más activas en la lucha contra los nazis. Su juventud y su apariencia inocente pronto les ofrecieron un escudo ante el que los nazis eran incapaces de reconocer a un enemigo frente a ellos.
Esa es la historia que cuenta la escritora Sophie Podelmans en su último libro, 'Seduciendo y matando nazis', en el que cuenta la historia de las tres heroínas. Tras la muerte de aquel oficial nazi, las tres amigas decidieron involucrarse en cualquier plan que tuviera como fin acabar con el reinado de terror alemán y pronto comenzaron a ser mucho más activas: primero, destruyendo las vías de tren para evitar la deportación de judíos; después, asesinando nazis.
Pronto descubrieron lo que necesitaban: encontrarse con los nazis a solas. Truus tuvo la fortuna de aquel encuentro fortuito, en el que ningún otro nazi acompañaba a aquel que acabó con la vida del bebé. Pero no era la norma. ¿De qué manera podían hallar esa oportunidad? Muy sencillo: en las tabernas en las que se emborrachaban los alemanes, sería fácil abordarlos. Maquillaje, vestidos ajustados y promesas de diversión aseguraban esta posibilidad.
Así fue como estas tres jóvenes se dedicaron a seducir a los soldados, a los que llevaban a lugares apartados para, en cuanto tenían la oportunidad, asesinarlos a sangre fría de un disparo en la cabeza. Los nazis nunca llegaron a pensar que sus flirteos eran los que les estaban llevando a encontrarse con un enemigo al que nunca se habían enfrentado, hasta que más de cuatro años después, un soldado alemán reconoció a Hannie Schaft, la 'chica del pelo rojo'.
Hasta en dos ocasiones, este nazi observó cómo una joven pelirroja se acercaba a un grupo de soldado entre los que él se encontraba. Uno de ellos se marchaba con la joven y nunca volvía: aquella tercera vez, no fue diferente. Pronto dio la voz de alarma y una descripción de la joven, quien en marzo de 1945 era capturada en un control de carretera: cuando el pelotón de fusilamiento la encañonó, sus ojos resplandecieron. "Idiotas, yo disparo mejor que vosotros", fueron sus últimas palabras.
Las hermanas Oversteegen consiguieron sobrevivir a la II Guerra Mundial, pero nunca hicieron público el número de nazis a los que quitaron la vida. Se cree que entre las dos jóvenes y Schaft acabaron con la vida de unos 200 soldados, una historia que ahora se cuenta en 'Seduciendo y matando nazis' para hacer honor a tres heroínas que lucharon contra el régimen nazi desde la resistencia holandesa. Tres jóvenes que hicieron todo lo que estuvo en su mano por hacer del mundo un lugar mejor.
La vacuna contra el virus del papiloma ahora se recomienda para niños pequeños y no solo para niñas en Francia, y Autoridad Nacional de Salud de Francia (HAS) quiere que esta recomendación se incluya en el calendario de vacunación 2020 para ser implementada en verano.
La vacuna contra el VPH se ha recomendado hasta ahora en niñas de 11 a 14 años (con una recuperación de hasta 19 años), personas con deficiencia de su sistema inmunitario y hombres que tienen relaciones sexuales con hombres hasta 26 años de edad.
La vacunación es eficaz especialmente si no se ha producido la infección y esto solo puede asegurarse cuando aún no se han iniciado las relaciones sexuales. Por esta razón, son los preadolescentes y adolescentes los que potencialmente resultarán más beneficiados de los efectos preventivos de la vacuna.
En junio del 2006 se aprobó la primera vacuna contra el virus, lo cual permitió por primera vez prevenir de un modo efectivo el desarrollo de las lesiones causadas por el VPH. Desde entonces al menos 68 países han adoptado programas de vacunación contra el VPH.
Situación en España
La Consejería de Sanidad está vacunando desde enero de 2019 de manera gratuita contra el Virus del Papiloma Humano (VPH) a varios grupos de riesgo, entre ellos los hombres homosexuales. Sin embargo, según un informe publicado por el Ministerio de Sanidad, no se contempla la vacunación entre población infantil masculina tal y como recomienda la Organización Mundial de la Salud.
En España, se vacuna desde 2008. En principio, se empezó con todas las chicas a los 14 años, aunque alguna comunidad vacunaba a los 12-13 años. Desde 2017, todas las comunidades vacunan a todas las chicas a los 12 años, salvo Asturias que lo hace a los 13 años.
Con todo, la asociación de los pediatras recomienda esta vacunación en todas las chicas y chicos adolescentes que vivan en España, preferentemente a los 12 años, para conseguir la protección frente a este virus relacionado con tantos variados cánceres. Además, nunca es tarde para vacunar frente al VPH, aunque ya se hayan tenido relaciones sexuales, e incluso aunque ya se haya infectado la persona con este virus.
El virus del papiloma humano (VPH), también llamado papilomavirus, es un virus muy extendido que afecta a más de la mitad de las personas que tienen relaciones sexuales, aunque en la gran mayoría de ellas no les provoca ningún problema y vencen la infección genital sin tan siquiera haberla notado.
El virus es la causa de casi el 100% de los cánceres de cérvix (también llamado cáncer de cuello uterino), 90% de los anales, 70% de vagina, 50% de pene, 40% de vulva y entre el 13-72% de los cánceres de asociados a la boca y la faringe.
Edición original: Shogakukan
Edición nacional/ España: ECC Ediciones.
Guión: ITO Junji
Dibujo: ITO Junji
Formato:Rústica con sobrecubierta. 200-216 páginas
Precio: 9,95€
En ciertas ocasiones, se da el caso de autores que cultivan tantas veces un género determinado y con tan buenos resultados, que se les asocia a ese tipo de historias automáticamente, y se tiende a olvidar o dejar en segundo plano sus obras ajenas a dicho género, aunque sean igual de buenas o mejores que las que les han llevado a la fama. En el terreno del manga, esto ocurre con autores tan dispares como KOIKE Kazuo, IKEGAMI Ryoichi, o ITO Junji, autor cuyo trabajo analizamos en esta reseña.
A pesar de que Uzumaki fue publicada por Planeta Cómic en el año 2004 y Ediciones La Cúpula hizo lo propio con Tomie en el año 2006, resultaron ediciones aisladas que no tuvieron continuidad, y no sería hasta el año 2014 cuando el grueso de la producción de este mangaka dejaría de estar inédita en nuestro país. ECC Ediciones eligió a este autor, entre otros, para cimentar su recién inaugurada línea editorial manga y, a la vista de la cantidad de títulos publicados e incluso reeditados, se puede decir sin ninguna duda que acertaron de pleno, ya que desde entonces hasta el día de hoy han editado 12 títulos repartidos en 34 volúmenes, sin tener en cuentas la reedición de varias de ellas en un formato más lujoso.
Hasta hace unos meses, las obras de senseiIto publicadas en nuestro país pertenecían al género de terror, del que es todo un maestro y una referencia ineludible, pero con este cómic se abren nuevos frentes y se demuestra la versatilidad de un magnífico autor. Indigno de ser humano es una de las obras más importantes de la literatura nipona, escrita por DAZAI Osamu, pseudónimo de TSUJIMA Shûji, quien se erigió en la voz literaria de un país derrotado y destruido tras la II Guerra Mundial, gracias a una obra de marcados tintes autobiográficos donde hace públicos los momentos más relevantes de su vida, con un espíritu rebelde e inconformista con los valores tradicionales de la sociedad japonesa. Esta novela ha sido adaptada al cine, el anime y el manga en diversas ocasiones.
La historia comienza el 13 de junio de 1948, con el suicidio de un hombre de mediana edad y su amante, quienes se lanzan a un canal de un suburbio tokiota atados el uno al otro mediante una cuerda. Tras estas primeras páginas, la narración da un salto al pasado para presentarnos a Yôzô Ooba, un niño afable de familia rica, ya que su padre es un político bien situado. El propio chiquillo explica que las payasadas con las que entretiene y se gana el cariño de quienes le rodean no son más que un caparazón para proteger su verdadera personalidad, una farsa gracias a la que puede seguir adelante, ya que en realidad es un ser apático con serios problemas de adaptación social.
Ooba, violado por los criados y las criadas de su familia, y cansado de huir de la admiración de sus familiares y conocidos, aprovecha la oferta de su padre para ingresar en un instituto de otra ciudad, alejándose en casa de unos parientes. Allí, sus miedos hacia la sociedad despertarán en él el deseo de experimentar el terror y, apoyado por Takeichi, un compañero de instituto que descubre su verdadero rostro, se animará a plasmarlo en cuadros. El suicidio de su único amigo, tras haber sido manipulado y humillado por Ooba, lo atormentará y se traducirá en apariciones del fallecido, a la vez que descubre que su arrolladora personalidad produce una gran atracción en las mujeres, seduciendo a sus dos primas y provocando una disputa de fatales consecuencias entre ellas. El acceso al bachillerato y su traslado a Tokyo se convertirán en una vía de escape de todos los desastres que había ocasionado, algo que se convertirá en una constante a lo largo de su vida.
En la capital, sus aversiones sociales, el pánico a la vida y las nuevas compañías lo llevarán a iniciarse en el consumo desenfrenado de alcohol y tabaco y a frecuentar casas de prostitución, en un desesperado intento por huir de sus problemas. Esta inercia lo llevará también a formar parte de un círculo marxista, de cuya ilegalidad disfrutaba aunque no se sintiera un miembro del mismo. A pesar de ello, la manipulación de sus compañeros y su creciente implicación lo acaban convirtiendo en uno de los líderes del movimiento, a costa del progresivo abandono de sus estudios.
Ooba seguirá consumando su personal descenso a los infiernos utilizando a mujeres para su propio beneficio, consumiéndolas como a un cigarrillo, apagando sus vidas lentamente e incluso induciéndolas al suicidio. Su lamentable existencia siempre se verá atormentada por los fantasmas de su pasado, la sombra de un padre avergonzado, la adicción a las drogas y la presión de sus fobias.
A medida que avanza la lectura, crece la sensación de que el protagonista no es solo un adicto a las diferentes sustancias que lo vemos consumir, sino que también lo es a su propia miseria, siendo él mismo su peor enemigo, alguien que no puede disfrutar de la vida, al que alcanzar un mínimo bienestar le genera una asfixia que desata su innata capacidad de autodestrucción y al que no le importa arrastrar en su degeneración a las personas de su alrededor.
Toda esta espiral de desgracias es presentada de manera externa, pero en realidad está cargada de tintes autobiográficos, y es que Ooba no es más que un alter ego del propio Dazai, quienes se encuentran y se complementan como los dos reversos de una misma moneda. El conocimiento de ese otro yo los ayuda a congraciarse consigo mismos, sobreponerse a su deleznable naturaleza y a un renacimiento espiritual.
Ito se revela como un artista ideal para realizar esta adaptación, ya que su dibujo oscuro y sombrío dota al argumento de mayor profundidad, imprime un aura malsana que potencia las desgracias del protagonista y consigue arrastrarnos a los profundos pozos de la miseria. Entre sus virtudes destaca dotar a este singular drama humano de una dimensión terrorífica, en la que se mueve como un pez en el agua.
Los tres tomos que componen Indigno de ser humano han sido recientemente publicados por ECC Ediciones, en los meses de septiembre, octubre y noviembre, respectivamente, continuando su excelente y nunca suficientemente agradecida labor de publicación de las, hasta estos últimos años, obras inéditas en España de este gran autor. Como el resto de sus títulos, el formato de los tomos es el B6 (130×180 mm), en rústica con sobrecubiertas a un precio de 9,95 euros cada uno. Se trata de una edición correcta, a pesar de que no se incluyen las páginas originales a color, con una bonita encuadernación metalizada que puede observarse cuando se retiran las sobrecubiertas. Al final del tercer volumen se incluye un listado con las referencias bibliográficas utilizadas por el autor durante la planificación y la creación de este manga.
O Consello de Europa deixa claro que "a normativa sobre o uso do galego vixente no noso país atópase en flagrante contradición" coa Carta Europea das Linguas, salienta a RAG
“There is no future. There is no past. Do you see? Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.” — Dr. Manhattan, Watchmen
- - -
It is the first day of Christmas. In fifteen seconds, my True Love gives me my first gift. My True Love is saying, “You’re going to be so surprised by your presents.” Ten seconds from now she gives me the partridge. The partridge is in the pear tree. On the tenth day the lords are a-leaping. On the fourth day the calling birds flit around the living room.
It is the first day. My True Love kisses me and says, “I think I really nailed your presents this year. This is going to be the best Christmas ever.”
It is the twelfth day of Christmas. My True Love is leaving.
It’s the ninth day. My True Love can tell that I don’t like the dancing ladies. Or any of my other gifts. In thirty seconds my True Love is going to tell me that she didn’t get gift receipts for any of the presents. Tears run down my True Love’s face. “If you can see the future and already know what I’m going to get you and you don’t like the presents, why didn’t you try and stop me?” The ladies are dancing.
I’m explaining to my True Love that I perceive time all at once, and that I can’t change the future because for me everything happens simultaneously, and that’s also why it’s impossible to surprise me with a present (unless you use tachyon interference), and also that it’s okay that my True Love didn’t get gift receipts.
“How did you know I didn’t get gift receipts?”
“You just told me.”
It’s the twelfth day. I am ready to begin taking down the Christmas tree.
The sixth day of Christmas. My True Love and I make love. In the next room, the geese are a-laying. The partridge is in the pear tree. I am tired of this world, these people. Tired of being caught in their gift exchanges. Their White Elephants. Their Secret Santas. Santa does not exist. I could be Santa if I wanted to. I have the power to give everyone in the world everything they want. But what would happen after that? The world is a toy with no toymaker.
The twelfth day. My True Love pauses in the doorway. She turns to look at me. “And on top of everything else,” she says, “You didn’t get even a single present for me.” The door slams shut.
Oh. Right.
It is 1985. I am on Mars. That doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas, but it is a thing that is also happening to me simultaneously. On the eighth day, the maids are a-milking, and I’m explaining to my True Love that I was just back on Mars because of the way I perceive time (non-linearly). She clenches her jaw.
It is the twelfth day of Christmas. The drummers are drumming. The lords are a-leaping. The golden rings are still golden rings. I hover, cross-legged, in front of the Christmas tree. One hour and thirty-seven minutes ago my True Love is walking out the door. The ornaments float back into their boxes. One of the drummers stops drumming and asks me, “Uh, should we, like, give you some space, or do you want us all to just keep doing our thing?”
I teleport the drummers and the lords and the ladies and the pipers and the maids and swans and the geese and the calling birds and the turtle doves away from here. I disintegrate the French hens. And the rings. The partridge can stay. It settles further into its roost in the pear tree.
It’s the fifth day. I feel the weight of the golden rings in my hand. I’m explaining that, while I actually like this gift, I am not surprised by it, because I perceive time in a non-linear fashion. Behind me, my True Love is shouting, “I get it! I get it! I understand how you see time! I’ve read Slaughterhouse-Five, it’s NOT that complicated.” I admire the atomic structure of the gold.
It is the first day of Christmas. Five seconds from now my True Love gives me my first gift. She says, “I think I really nailed your presents this year. This is going to be the best Christmas ever.” The golden rings fall to the floor. The partridge takes flight from the pear tree. The lords are a-leaping and one lord snags his foot on the carpet and kinda trips and he looks around and then smiles like, “Phew, nobody saw that.” But I see it.
My True Love and I kiss. The partridge is already in the pear tree.
This story was originally published on December 6, 2018. Much like Santa with his Naughty and Nice list, every holiday season we revisit the ranking to reconsider which films make the cut.
The holiday season is upon us, which means it’s time to put away our differences in the interest of peace on earth, goodwill toward others, etc., etc., and kick back with a great Christmas movie, a filmmaking tradition that dates back to the 1898 filmSanta Claus. In that one, Santa slides down a chimney, stuffs some stockings, and promptly disappears into the ether; the whole film runs just over one minute long.
No one would argue that that early effort was anything but a Christmas movie, but these days, the question comes up frequently: What exactly is a Christmas movie? Is merely being set at Christmas enough? Or is there some elusive other element that makes a Christmas movie a Christmas movie? It’s the old, now tired, “Does Die Hard count?” debate.
Well, does it? Opting for a big-tent definition of what constitutes a Christmas movie, this list of the greatest Christmas movies ever made argues, yes, it does, very much so. And not just because it takes place at Christmas. The story of a man trying to repair his life, earn redemption, and keep his family together, Die Hard engages with some key Christmas-movie themes. More than twinkling lights and gift-making elves, we looked to these elements when putting the list together.
Also, the movies on this list have to be good. There’s a cynical reason to make a Christmas movie: The demand is high, even for the bad ones, every holiday season, when cable plays them ad nauseam to satisfy Christmas-crazed subscribers. So, sorry, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation — just because you’re unavoidable doesn’t earn you a spot on the list. Another qualifier: We stayed away from the world of made-for-TV movies, though some direct-to-streaming titles did make the cut. That means Hallmark Channel Christmas movies about young people who don’t like each other but then end up liking each other a lot weren’t considered. The list is mostly feature films but with a few shorts thrown in as well.
We also opted to include a wide variety of Christmas movies, ranging from established classics to cult horror movies. Not every title will be for everyone, but there should be something for everyone here, whether you want Jimmy Stewart welcoming the season or Santa’s demonic counterpart threatening a dysfunctional family. In the spirit of the season, we erred on the side of generosity.
The Christmas Chronicles (2018)
Photo: Michael Gibson/Netflix/Everett Collection
The streaming era has produced many forgettable movies that disappear from memory almost as quickly as they appear under the “Top Picks” header. But some have stuck around, like this goofy, endearing Netflix movie starring Kurt Russell as a gruff but good-hearted (and hunky) Santa who spends one busy Christmas Eve helping out a family of troubled kids escape a series of mishaps. Think Adventures in Babysitting, but with St. Nicholas and a musical cameo from Steven van Zandt and his band. A sequel followed in 2020 that, while not quite as good, does expand on Goldie Hawn’s last-minute appearance as Mrs. Claus at the end of the original.
The Great Rupert (1950)
A true Christmas oddity, this is the only holiday movie featuring Jimmy Durante as a down-on-his-luck vaudevillian forced to part ways with his trained squirrel as Christmas approaches. That’s the heartbreaking premise of The Great Rupert, but it’s all a set-up to a happy ending in which Durante is reunited with his four-legged friend, the poor get rich, and the rich learn a lesson (a story element that pops up a lot in the flood of Christmas movies released in the years immediately following World War II). The plot lags at times, but Durante’s always fun, and so is Rupert, the delightful creation of producer George Pal, the stop-motion wizard behind Puppetoons.
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
There’s no shortage of Christmas horror movies, some of them quite good (as other entries on this list suggest). But none are quite like Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, an unwaveringly deadpan Christmas thriller from Finnish director Jalmari Helander (Sisu). Onni Tommila plays Pietari, a boy living in a remote corner of Lapland, who comes to fear that a nearby mining operation has unearthed Santa Claus.But not, in his words, the “Coca-Cola Santa,” the real, demonic Santa dedicated to punishing the naughty. As Christmas approaches, and strange occurrences like the mass slaughter of reindeer start to transpire, Pietari and those around him discover the boy is only half-right and the real trouble is even deeper and stranger. Helander and his cast commit to the absurd premise wholeheartedly, allowing Rare Exports to work as a fun yuletide black comedy and a pretty solid supernatural action film at the same time. Fair warning: You’ll never think of Santa’s elves in the same way ever again after watching it.
The Ice Harvest (2005)
Between this movie and another one a little higher on the list, Billy Bob Thornton has carved himself a nice space in the seamy-underbelly-of-Christmas subgenre. Holiday cheer provides an ironic backdrop for this overlooked-but-quite-good Harold Ramis thriller, starring Thornton and John Cusack as a pair of seedy characters looking to get the hell out of Wichita after ripping off their boss. Unfortunately, they haven’t factored in the possibility that bad weather (to say nothing of double crosses and other unforeseen bits of adversity) will get in their way. Thornton and Cusack make for a great pair, but it’s Oliver Platt who steals his every scene as a drunken lawyer in a film that provides the perfect antidote to the season’s excessive amounts of good cheer and faith in one’s fellow man.
Batman Returns (1992)
Photo: Warner Bros./Everett Collection
Tim Burton isn’t exactly underrepresented on this list, but his second Batman movie is too filled with twinkles and tinsel not to include, even if its mood is ultimately more frightful than festive. The sequel pits Batman (Michael Keaton) against the dreadful Penguin (Danny DeVito) and the alluring Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) against the backdrop of a Gotham City all decked out for the holidays. (One key scene takes place at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony that goes awry.) Whether it truly celebrates the season or not is open for debate, but watching the film’s superheroics play out in a snowy, light-strewn, postcard-perfect city makes it feel of a piece with Burton’s other Christmas films.
The Silent Partner (1978)
There’s been no shortage of scary Santas in movies — see above and below for examples — but few as terrifying as Christopher Plummer in this sometimes brutal thriller. Plummer plays Arthur Reikle, a psychopathic criminal who poses as a mall Santa while scheming to rob a Toronto bank. When a clever clerk (Elliott Gould) gets wise and schemes to rob the robber, a battle of wits ensues. The action plays out across several months, but it’s the early scenes that will make you look askance at any stranger in a Santa costume, no matter how jolly-seeming.
Christmas Evil (a.k.a. You Better Watch Out and Terror in Toyland) (1980)
Or, if The Ice Harvest isn’t a strong enough antidote, check out this truly twisted slasher about a toy-factory employee who goes on a Yuletide killing spree. Christmas Evil has a premise similar to the much better known Silent Night, Deadly Night, which sparked protests in the streets when it was released four years later. But Silent Night, Deadly Night is just a standard slasher movie in Christmas drag. Christmas Evil plays like a demented piece of outsider art that takes the idea of a killer Santa to some pretty extreme places — including an ending that has to be seen to be believed. John Waters is a fan, which pretty much tells you all you need to know.
The Insects’ Christmas (1913)
Before The Nightmare Before Christmas, before Rankin-Bass specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, before even The Great Rupert there was The Insects’ Christmas, from Russian animator Ladislas Starevich. Starevich made a series of films using dead insects as his stars. His Christmas movie expands the cast to include Father Christmas and an animated doll. But insects remain, as the title suggests, front and center in an inventive, enchanting, if a little unsettling, look at how a bunch of bugs (and one frog) celebrate Christmas that climaxes with Santa, a grasshopper, and assorted other bugs skating on a frozen lake. счастливого Рождества to all!
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Photo: Warner Bros./Everett Collection
What’s Stanley Kubrick’s final film about, really? Is it about one man’s harrowing descent into the erotic underbelly of New York as he wanders around one night? It is. But isn’t it also about a family nearly falling apart then getting back together in time for Christmas? Its final scene, set in a toy-and-Christmas-light-filled FAO Schwarz, suggests that’s the case. The film’s final lines are not directly related to the holidays or, technically speaking, family-friendly. But they, in their own way, encapsulate the season’s spirit of togetherness.
The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
As Christmas approaches, all is not well for Henry Brougham (David Niven), a Protestant bishop trying to raise funds for the glorious new cathedral of his dreams — a project that’s led him to neglect his wife, Julia (Loretta Young), and daughter and cause him to lose sight of his roots as a minister to the needy. Enter Dudley (Cary Grant), an angel determined to set Henry on the right path. The only trouble: He finds himself increasingly wanting to spend time with Julia instead. The film’s a bit pokily directed at times, but Young and Grant’s chemistry smooths over some rough patches — particularly when Grant gets a wistful look in his eyes suggesting that he might call heaven his home but he knows he could find even greater happiness on earth with Young’s character by his side. (The Preacher’s Wife, the 1996 remake starring Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston, is also worth a look.)
Metropolitan (1990)
Everyone knows that Christmas is about three things: spiritual reflection, spending time with family, and debutante balls. Or at least that’s what the season means for the self-described Urbane Haute Bourgeoisie of Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan, upper-class (and upper-class-adjacent) Manhattanites who spend their evenings attending deb events and their after-hours discussing life, politics, literature, and whatever else comes to mind.Edward Clements stars as Tom, a not-that-privileged college student who falls in with a more upper-crust crowd where he’s befriended by the acidic Nick (Chris Eigeman) and Audrey (Carolyn Farina), with whom he becomes infatuated. Audrey’s fondness for Jane Austen provides the strongest clue as to what Stillman’s up to with this fond but unsparing comedy of manners set among a group of not-quite-adults just before they have to decide what they do with the rest of their lives.It’s a spiritual reflection of a different sort, the kind loaded with endearing characters, witty lines, and unexpectedly touching moments.
Scrooged (1988)
What is Scrooged trying to say, anyway? You can watch the film over and over — easy to do if you have a cable subscription in December, when it plays all the time — and never quite figure it out. Is it a pitch-black comedy about the commercialization of Christmas? Is it a cynical send-up of our once-a-year celebration of kindness and selflessness? Is it a sincere depiction of a man being transformed by the holidays? It’s a tough film to pin down, probably because the darkly comic sensibilities of star Bill Murray and writers Mitch Glazer and Michael O’Donoghue often seem at odds with that of blockbuster director Richard Donner. But what makes this Reagan-era update on Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol — in which Murray plays a cold-hearted TV network president visited by Christmas spirits — flawed also makes it fascinating, and Carol Kane is especially fun as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Worth noting: Dickens’s classic looms large over the Christmas-movie genre, making this just one of many A Christmas Carol adaptations to make the list. Others include …
Scrooge (1970)
For a more tuneful version of the Dickens tale, there’s this 1970 musical starring Albert Finney as the eponymous miser. Finney holds nothing back as Scrooge, truly living up to the moniker “the Meanest Man in the Whole Wide World” given to him in “Father Christmas,” one of many earworm-y songs written by Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory songwriter Leslie Bricusse. Highlights include Alec Guinness as a spooky Jacob Marley and a truly scary Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. It’s a big, occasionally tacky, but quite fun take on the familiar story.
Little Women (1994), 36. Little Women (2019), and 37. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
All three of these movies raise a question: How much Christmas does a movie need to be a Christmas movie? All are great films that set key scenes at Christmastime, but is it fair to call them Christmas movies? In the generous spirit of the season, let’s include them (but let’s also rank them a little lower than some others because so much of their narratives don’t take place during the holidays). All also have moments so Christmassy it would be a shame not to include them. Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 Little Women adaptation gets the nod for the moving way it stages the moment when Beth (Claire Danes) receives a piano for Christmas (and Danes’s heartrending expression of overwhelming joy). Greta Gerwig’s 2019 version has to be included for the moment when Bob Odenkirk’s Mr. March returns home for Christmas and embraces his family while calling them “my little women.” Vincente Minnelli’s classic 1944 musical spans a year in the life of St. Louis’s Smith family, but it’s a year in which a Christmas ball plays a pivotal role and features Judy Garland debuting “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” now a Christmas standard (albeit one no one has performed more heartbreakingly than Garland).
The Holiday (2006)
Photo: Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection
With her follow-up to Something’s Gotta Give, Nancy Myers seemingly set out to ask the question, If I cast four actors who really have no business appearing in a soft-edged romantic comedy in my next movie, could I make it work anyway? The answer: kind of? Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet play, respectively, a tightly wound editor of movie trailers and a British newspaper reporter who decide to swap houses shortly before Christmas. This leads Winslet’s character, now in L.A., to befriend an aging screenwriter played by Eli Wallach and (eventually) fall for a kindhearted composer played by Jack Black. Meanwhile, Diaz’s character, installed in Surrey, unwittingly hooks up with the brother of Winslet’s character, played by Jude Law. It’s a somewhat shapeless movie that goes on too long, but it also has an undeniable, nap-friendly, tryptophan-like charm as four beautiful people overcome the ridiculously small hurdles keeping them from getting together in two photogenic environments. (Also, Wallach’s a lot of fun.)
The Lemon Drop Kid (1951)
Bob Hope didn’t so much play characters as variations on the Bob Hope persona, a wisecracking coward with a tendency to get in way over his head then make matters worse for himself. Hope’s not the most obvious fit for a Damon Runyon adaptation, much less a Christmas-themed Runyon adaptation with a deep sentimental streak, but their sensibilities end up meshing pretty well anyway in this 1951 comedy. Hope plays the eponymous character, a con artist who has to flee Florida for New York in order to pay off a debt to a gangster. The ensuing scam involves criminals dressed as Santa and a fake retirement home for “Old Dolls.” The inspired slapstick bits reportedly come from the brilliant animator-turned-director Frank Tashlin, but it’s Hope and co-star Marilyn Maxwell’s performance of the then-new “Silver Bells” that’s ensured the film its spot in the Christmas-movie canon.
Home Alone (1990)
Nostalgia and holidays both have a way of warping emotions. Combined, they’re hard to resist, especially when it comes to movies that won us over when we were younger. That’s why it’s impossible not to include Home Alone — the John Hughes–scripted, Chris Columbus–directed hit in which Macaulay Culkin finds himself unexpectedly left behind when his family mistakenly flies to Paris without him. But it would be unfair to rank it any higher. Have you watched it? Lately? As a grown-up? Like, watched it all the way through from the shrill opening filled with obnoxious kids to the leadenly staged slapstick climax? It’s a much rougher ride than you might remember. Still, Culkin’s charming, and the sentimental ending works every time. Just ask George Costanza.
Love Actually (2003)
Photo: Universal/Everett Collection
Few movies have been embraced and rejected, rejected and embraced with the ferocity of Richard Curtis’s 2003 holiday smorgasbord of new love, old love, dying love, Prime Minister love, and porn-movie love. It’s unabashedly corny and sometimes annoyingly smug and simplistic in its take on love, but there’s just so much going on in the movie that it’s hard to reject it wholesale. Don’t like the silly story line in which some luckless Brits fly to America to test the theory that their accents will make them a hit with women? Just stay tuned for a wrenching tale of infidelity starring Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson. Plus, it features the quintessential Bill Nighy performance as a washed-up rock star made miserable by his success, a true present any time of year.
Holiday Affair (1949)
Janet Leigh plays Connie, a war widow who unexpectedly becomes the center of a love triangle when her longtime suitor Carl (Wendell Corey) meets an unexpected rival in the form of Steve (Robert Mitchum), a veteran trying to figure out his place in the postwar world. Steve finds himself infatuated with Connie after they meet-cute in a department store — he’s a clerk, she’s a Christmastime undercover shopper — then starts a hard sell, asking him to dump Carl and take a chance on him. Mitchum’s tough-guy demeanor serves him well here, giving an odd energy to the love story. His character is sometimes written as too pushy, but the scene in which he declares his intentions over Christmas dinner, a moment where there’s no room for lies, is downright electric — and the final scene is a stunner.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Shane Black often sets his films against a Christmas backdrop, but where Lethal Weapon, Iron Man 3, and others feel like films that happen to take place at Christmas, Black’s directorial debut feels like it could only take place at Christmas thanks to its themes of redemption, forgiveness, and rebirth. Here it’s New York thief Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) in need of a new start, which he gets when he’s mistakenly asked to audition for a role in a Hollywood movie. Once there, he falls into a mystery tied to his own past when he reconnects with a childhood friend (Michelle Monaghan) and reluctantly partners with a private eye (Val Kilmer). The twists, rapid-fire banter, and love of seedy crime fiction are familiar Black trademarks, but the concern for Harry’s happiness and connections with others — brought to life by the performance that cemented Downey’s comeback — make this Black’s most heartfelt script.
Elf (2003)
Sometimes the right actor in the right role is pretty much all you need. This pleasant, goofy film stars Will Ferrell as Buddy, a human who’s grown up at the North Pole living under the mistaken impression that he’s an elf, despite developing into a lumbering adult with little skill for elfish endeavors such as toy-making. Eventually, he has to find his way in the human world when he travels to New York in search of his birth father (James Caan). As a cynical department-store employee, Zooey Deschanel provides a fun contrast to Ferrell’s wild-eyed enthusiasm. The film’s more winning the less it relies on wild antics, but Ferrell and others make sure it stays heartfelt throughout.
Arthur Christmas (2011)
Aardman Animations, the studio behind the Wallace and Gromit shorts and Chicken Run, brings its own particular whimsical sensibility to a holiday tale with this playful look inside the inner workings of the North Pole, where the latest in a long line of Santas (Jim Broadbent) seems reluctant to give up his post to one of his sons. Steven Claus (Hugh Laurie), who’s been running the operation for his dad with military precision, seems the obvious successor, but it’s the bumbling Arthur (James McAvoy) who best embodies the Christmas spirit, as evidenced by his mad rush to make sure the one kid who mistakenly got the wrong present doesn’t wake up disappointed on Christmas morning. The film mixes clever ideas — dig that high-tech North Pole! — with real warmth, making it feel like nothing less than the future of Christmas itself rests on Arthur’s shoulders.
A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Photo: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
The first big-screen Muppet project after the 1990 death of Jim Henson, A Muppet Christmas Carol features some terrific Paul Williams songs, and smartly slots the always charming Muppets in the familiar Dickens roles. (Kermit and Piggy play the Cratchits, naturally, yet it’s details like the Swedish Chef as a party cook that make it a particular delight for longtime fans.) In the end, though, what makes the movies is Michael Caine’s performance as Ebenezer Scrooge. Caine plays it straight, as if he doesn’t even realize he’s surrounded by puppets, ensuring that the movie works as a moving Dickens adaptation first, and a Muppet movie second.
Blast of Silence (1961)
A true cult classic, this low-budget noir directed by Allen Baron unfolds against the backdrop of a New York decked out for the holidays. Yet it’s anything but a merry Christmas for Frank Bono (also Baron), a Cleveland hit man who’s in town to do a job. Mixing gritty location shooting with lyrical narration, it mixes pulpy themes with a feeling of existential loneliness. The movie would work if it weren’t set at Christmas, but the holiday cheer ratchets up the sense of alienation and despair. Not everyone is destined to have happy holidays. Some might not even make it out alive.
Black Christmas (1974)
Arthur Christmas too heartwarming for you? Then try Bob Clark’s classic horror film, in which a mysterious killer starts picking off members of a sorority house one by one during the lead-up to Christmas. Shot on and near the University of Toronto campus, it’s secretly one of the most influential horror films of all time, inspiring Halloween and all the slasher films that followed. Beyond its odd cast (Margot Kidder! SCTV’s Andrea Martin! Romeo and Juliet star Olivia Hussey! 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Keir Dullea!), it’s notable for using Christmas trappings to unnerving effect, including a truly memorable final scene. (Clark, who’d later go on to direct Porky’s, would return to Christmas with a much different movie less than a decade later.)
Tim Burton’s the Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Is this a Christmas movie or a Halloween movie? Why choose one when it’s obviously both? The Nightmare Before Christmas has become such a Halloween marketing bonanza — with images of protagonists Jack Skellington and Sally becoming unavoidable every October — that it’s easy to forget it’s at heart the story of a kindhearted ghoulish spirit learning the true meaning of Christmas. (That its most famous song repeats the words “This is Halloween!” over and over again probably doesn’t help.) Directed by stop-motion wizard Henry Selick from a story and designs by Tim Burton, it plays like a sweet-creepy take on a Rankin-Bass Christmas special, building an elaborate mythology out of the holidays and populating it with endearing characters with lessons to learn and adversity to overcome.
Gremlins (1984)
Photo: Warner Bros./Everett Collection
Much like Nightmare Before Christmas, Joe Dante’s enduring horror favorite Gremlins plays like someone wanted to see how badly a bunch of little monsters could screw up the setting of another Christmas classic. The answer: pretty badly! Set in an idyllic American town straight out of It’s a Wonderful Life — its name, Kingston Falls, even hearkens back to that movie’s Bedford Falls — Gremlins features a cuddly little creature whose evil offspring run amok all over a sweet burg as it gets ready to celebrate the Christmas season. As usual, Dante mixes mockery with celebration, and the film evolves from a horror movie into a freewheeling send-up of both the holidays and the Hollywood movies that celebrate them.
Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983)
Neither Disney animation nor its biggest star, Mickey Mouse, were riding high in the early ’80s. Disney had suffered a string of disappointments and setbacks, and though he remained an inescapable icon, Mickey hadn’t been seen in movie theaters since the ’50s. But this adaptation of the Dickens story suggested there might be life in both yet. Running just 26 minutes — and originally serving as the opener for a rerelease of The Rescuers — Mickey’s Christmas Carol offers a brisk, moving take on the familiar story. Scrooge McDuck (who else?) assumes the Scrooge role, but it’s Mickey and Minnie’s turns as the Cratchits that give the lovingly animated film its heart. After years of cutting corners and coasting on past triumphs, it provided an early sign that Disney was trying again — almost as if the studio has been visited by spirits reminding it what really mattered or something.
Remember the Night (1940)
Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck famously co-starred in Billy Wilder’s 1944 noir Double Indemnity, but that’s just one of four films to pair them together. They first teamed up for this 1940 Christmas romance in which Fred MacMurray plays John Sargent, a hard-charging DA who, through a misunderstanding, comes to spend the days before Christmas with Lee Leander (Barbara Stanwyck), a small-time jewel thief he’s prosecuting. They start to fall in love during a road trip to Indiana, a sojourn that almost allows them to forget that John still has to try to send Lee to jail when they get back. Directed by Mitchell Leisen from a Preston Sturges script, Remember the Night begins as a broad, brisk comedy but shifts moods as John learns about Lee’s difficult past. In a classic holiday-spirit turn, he comes to realize the advantages his loving family have bestowed upon him once he sees how appreciative Lee is after sharing the first warm Christmas morning of her life with his family.
The Holdovers (2023)
A movie about holiday togetherness that focuses on three characters that would rather be anywhere else (at least at first), Alexander Payne’s 1970-set comedy stars Paul Giamatti as Paul, a boarding-school teacher unexpectedly saddled with caring for a handful of boys with nowhere else to go at Christmastime. When that bunch gets reduced to just one bright, sad, rebellious kid named Angus (Dominic Sessa), Paul finds himself forced to open up for the first time in years, both to Angus and Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the head of the school’s cafeteria services who’s remained behind to provide meals. Mary’s still mourning the loss of her son in Vietnam, and Angus has family problems that remain veiled until late in the film. They seemingly have nothing in common, but Payne’s film evolves from a comedy of awkward interactions to a bittersweet celebration of togetherness that unfolds on the edge of despair.
Reve De Noel (The Christmas Dream) (1900)
French cinematic pioneer Georges Méliès’s contribution to the Christmas-film canon offers little in the way of narrative, just an abundance of turn-of-the-century Christmas imagery as a pair of sleeping children imagine a winter wonderland filled with frolicking musicians, holiday revelers, and, of course, Père Noël himself. It’s a lovely, whimsical short film that captures the inventive director in a festive mood, and immortalizes on film ways of celebrating Christmas that otherwise might have faded from memory.
White Christmas (1954) and 16. Holiday Inn (1942)
Photo: Everett Collection
A song of yearning for holiday togetherness the singer suspects he’ll never find again, Bing Crosby’s recording of the Irving Berlin song “White Christmas” became a runaway hit in 1942 as America adjusted to the loss and separation of World War II. Its success was spurred on by the August release of Holiday Inn, a musical conceived by Berlin that starred Crosby and Fred Astaire as collaborators who break up and reunite over the course of a year, all against the backdrop of a country inn only open on holidays. (All the better to showcase Berlin’s knack for crafting holiday-themed hits.) With Danny Kaye subbing in for Astaire, Berlin and Crosby teamed up 12 years later for White Christmas, another holiday musical set at an idyllic getaway.
Both films have become Christmas staples, and both have much to recommend them. Featuring top-drawer Berlin songs and one memorable scene after another — Astaire tap dances while smoking and setting off fireworks in one — and elegant direction by Mark Sandrich, Holiday Inn is the better film by a good measure, but watching it means grappling with an ugly blackface number mid-film. (To make matters worse, skipping the scene altogether would result in missing an important plot point.) White Christmas, on the other hand, features fewer songs and a sleepy, low-stakes plot as Crosby and Kaye romance (sort of) a sister act played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen. Still, its aggressive, Technicolor pleasantness has its own charms.
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Tim Burton clearly has a fondness for Christmas that extends beyond A Nightmare Before Christmas. Batman Returns, for one, uses the holiday to memorable effect. But Burton’s Edward Scissorhands goes even further, treating a sensitive, lab-created man with scissors for hands (Johnny Depp) as a Christ-like, too-pure-for-this-world figure who descends on an American suburb where he’s celebrated, then persecuted. The first collaboration between Burton and Depp, a team-up that would become less welcome as the years piled up, is a lovely celebration of outsiders that captures the Burton sensibility in its purest form, elevating his sympathy for monsters and a disdain for the “normal” world into a moral drama filled with arresting images.
3 Godfathers (1948)
Not unlike Scissorhands, John Ford’s 3 Godfathers similarly uses echoes of the story of Christ to tremendous effect. A rare Christmas Western, the film stars John Wayne as one of a trio of bank robbers who agree to care for a newborn child while fleeing the law in Death Valley. Ford’s biblical echoes aren’t subtle, nor are they intended to be, but Wayne keeps the film, and its themes of redemption and rebirth, grounded with one of his most sensitive performances.
It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)
Photo: Everett Collection
A great Christmas movie that not enough people talk about, It Happened on Fifth Avenue opens with the homeless sage Aloysius T. McKeever (Victor More) moving, as he does every Christmas season, into the luxurious Manhattan home of vacationing tycoon Michael J. O’Connor (Charles Ruggles). From there the film keeps piling on the complications as it breaks down the divide between the haves and the have-nots. McKeever is soon joined by a displaced World War II vet (Don DeFore) and O’Connor’s daughter Mary (Ann Harding), who doesn’t let on that she’s loaded and knows the house even better than those squatting there. The house grows more crowded, new loves get kindled, old loves get renewed, and O’Connor is forced to do a Scrooge-like about-face when he gets reacquainted with those less fortunate than him. Directed by Roy Del Ruth, who took on the project after Frank Capra decided to make It’s a Wonderful Life instead, It Happened on Fifth Avenue earns its warmth honestly, tethering a tale of fresh starts and changed hearts to the real difficulties faced by those reaching for the American dream in a postwar era that was supposed to bring prosperity for all.
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
In a film as sexy as it is funny, Barbara Stanwyck plays Elizabeth Lane, a magazine columnist who risks being exposed as a phony if she can’t create the perfect Christmas at the Connecticut home she’s writing about as part of a PR stunt to reward recuperating GI Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan), who’s been dreaming of tasting her recipes while serving in World War II. The only problem: There is no Connecticut home, and she can’t cook. The farcical complications pile up from there, and Stanwyck deftly balances Elizabeth’s mounting sense of panic with wry humor as she reckons with her unexpected desire for Jones — a desire that has popped up just after she’s decided to give up on love in return for a marriage of convenience. Director Peter Godfrey keeps the action fast and light while trusting Stanwyck to excellently bring her character’s dilemma to life, even if it involves changing a diaper as if she’s never seen a baby before in her life.
Peace on Earth (1939)
Produced as the planet descended into another World War, this 1939 short, like many animated films, depicts a world populated by wide-eyed cartoon animals. The difference: They’ve inherited the Earth from humanity, whose habit of making war has led to its destruction. Directed for MGM by the influential animation pioneer Hugh Harman — who, with his partner Rudy Ising, had already logged stints working for Walt Disney and Warner Bros. — it’s a masterfully downbeat vision of the future; the cute protagonists, with their enthusiasm for keeping Christmas traditions alive, do little to offset the short film’s depictions of the horrors of war and the ways we fail to live up to our noblest principles. When Fred Quimby, William Hanna, and Joseph Barbera remade it 16 years later as the also-great Good Will to Men, they had to change little beyond the addition of nuclear war and other up-to-date threats.
Comfort and Joy (1984)
The end of the year can be a confusing time of reflection for those who feel they don’t have anything to celebrate. That feeling is captured beautifully in Scottish director Bill Forsyth’s tale of a Glasgow DJ (Bill Paterson), who finds himself unexpectedly alone when he’s dumped by his girlfriend shortly before Christmas. Adrift, he finds himself drawn into a turf war between two rival ice-cream vendors, a conflict that might offer him a chance to start over, or might drive him to the brink of madness. Paterson beautifully depicts a man who’s quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, experiencing a nervous breakdown as the world around him grows stranger and more absurd. That it all somehow builds toward a hilarious moment of reconciliation involving an unexpected new ice-cream product is just one of many little miracles in a Christmas movie that takes a roundabout way to celebrating the season’s possibilities of renewal and rebirth, but still gets there all the same.
Tangerine (2015)
Photo: Magnolia Pictures
It takes time for a film to emerge as a Christmas classic, and while this one may not end up being shown in constant rotation alongside A Christmas Story and Home Alone, let’s stake an early claim for Sean Baker’s Tangerine, a film that follows the Christmas spirit into some unexpected corners. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor co-star as, respectively, Sin-Dee and Alexandra, a pair of transgender sex workers living on the fringes of Los Angeles. Released from jail on Christmas Eve, Sin-Dee is driven to frustration when she learns that her pimp/lover Chester (James Ransone) is cheating on her as Alexandra prepares for a musical performance. Chaos mounts as day turns into night in the hours before Christmas.
Baker’s film, co-written by Chris Bergoch, alternates laughs and shocks, but it keeps circling back to how this particular Christmas has become a crossroads for its central characters, and how much they need each other if they’re going to make it through another year. It all ends with an image that, in its own way, is as warm and generous as Charlie Brown’s friends reviving a seemingly hopeless tree.
You might have noticed that this list — some notable exceptions aside — is dominated by stories of prosperous white families. Among its other virtues, Tangerine serves as a corrective to that tradition, serving as a reminder that Christmas isn’t limited to the land of picket fences and neatly trimmed trees. It’s a film as vital, alive, and in touch with the holiday as more traditional entries — an invitation to other filmmakers to redefine what a Christmas movie can be, and as much a story about the importance of human kindness as the one that tops this list.
Carol (2015)
Like Comfort and Joy, Todd Haynes’s Carol depicts the holidays as a time of possibility and peril as an intense, forbidden romance plays out against the backdrop of the 1952 Christmas season. The film stars Cate Blanchett as the eponymous unhappy housewife, a woman who unexpectedly falls for Therese (Rooney Mara), a store clerk. But their relationship seems doomed before it really begins once it threatens Carol’s ability to see her child, leaving her with an impossible choice. Inspired by Brief Encounter and adapted from a 1952 novel by Patricia Highsmith, otherwise best known for pitiless crime fiction like The Talented Mr. Ripley, Carol uses its holiday setting as more than a backdrop: Haynes bathes the films in Christmas lights, sure, but he also captures the spirit of a season through Carol and Therese’s relationship. The passing of one year gives way to a potential new beginning of the next — for those who can make it to the other side.
Die Hard (1988)
Odd as it may sound, many of the same qualities in Carol also make Die Hard a great Christmas movie, no matter what star Bruce Willis says. Yes, the John McTiernan–directed movie is one of the best action movies ever made; yes, it’s endlessly quotable; and, yes, it transformed Willis from that guy on Moonlighting who occasionally put out music under a different personainto a full-fledged movie star. But it’s also a story of loss and renewal in which Willis’s New York cop John McClane has to navigate the strange world of L.A. and take down a bunch of Eurotrash pseudo-terrorists in order to repair his marriage. And that’s no small part of the movie. Reconciling with his wife in time for the holidays is McClane’s mission. The rest is just a sidetrack, though neither goal will be easy. Still, he guns down the bad guys and emerges from the confrontation bloody and with a sense of forgiveness. Merry Christmas to all!
Bad Santa (2003)
A proudly mean-spirited black comedy seemingly at war with the Christmas spirit, Bad Santa somehow loops all the way back around to being a heartwarming Christmas movie about one man’s redemption. It’s a weird trick, pulled off in large part thanks to star Billy Bob Thornton’s performance as a hard-drinking con artist who uses his work as a mall Santa as a setup for grand larceny. Actually, “hard-drinking” doesn’t begin to describe Thornton’s Willie Soke, who spends much of the film in a near-stuporous state yet still manages to form an unlikely makeshift family with a misfit kid (Brett Kelly) and a bartender (Lauren Graham) with a thing for Santas. With able support from Bernie Mac and John Ritter, director Terry Zwigoff keeps the humor dark without losing sight of his characters’ humanity — however deep they might sink into a drunken haze.
A Christmas Story (1983)
Photo: MGM/Everett Collection
Making his second appearance on this list with a much different Christmas movie, director Bob Clark’s venerable 1983 film adapts storyteller and radio personality Jean Shepherd’s tales of growing up in Hammond, Indiana, while cutting nostalgia and sentiment with just the right amounts of broad, occasionally dark, comedy. (And, it has to be noted, some pretty unfortunate racial stereotypes toward the end.) The episodic film follows Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) in the days before Christmas, when he wants nothing more than a Red Ryder air rifle — and seems destined not to get one. Narrated by Shepherd himself, it mixes big comic moments, like a kid getting his tongue stuck to a stop sign, with affection for family life and days gone by. Clark renders the memories of growing up in a particular time and place so well that Shepherd’s Hammond — its name changed to “Hohman” — becomes an idealized stand-in for any time and every place.
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
There are many great romantic movies set at Christmas, but somehow The Shop Around the Corner still stands above them all. Maybe it’s the irresistible premise: A pair of feuding co-workers don’t realize they’re falling in love with one another via anonymous letters. (If that sounds familiar, it’s because Nora Ephron drew on the same source material — the Miklós László play Parfumerie — for You’ve Got Mail.) Maybe it’s a cast headed by Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan and filled out with colorful character actors. Maybe it’s because few directors have balanced lightness and romance like Ernst Lubitsch. Whatever the case, it’s both a peerless romantic comedy and one of the great Christmas movies, weaving themes of forgiveness and second chances into a love story that reflects the season in which it takes place.
A Christmas Carol (a.k.a. Scrooge) (1951)
What makes an adaptation of A Christmas Carol great? Above all, it’s the actor playing Ebenezer Scrooge. There have been many memorable movie Scrooges (take a look at the multiple entries above), but few as memorable as Alastair Sim. He’s not just terrifyingly convincing as a pitiless miser in the film’s early scenes but also heartbreakingly affecting as a changed man in its closing moments. Not that Sim doesn’t get help from director Brian Desmond Hurst, who whisks the action along while surrounding his lead with lushly realized Victorian trappings and an able supporting cast. But the film rests on Sim’s shoulders, and it’s not hard to see why he’s yet to be supplanted as the definitive Scrooge.
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Here’s a question: What was going on that led to so many great Christmas movies being released in 1947? That year saw the release of The Bishop’s Wife, It Happened on Fifth Avenue (see above), and offered most viewers their first chance to see the greatest Christmas movie of all time (see below). It also produced this lovely story of a girl (Natalie Wood) whose mother (Maureen O’Hara) unwittingly hires someone who may be the actual Kris Kringle as a department-store Santa at Macy’s. What follows is part fantasy, part romance (as O’Hara’s character starts to fall for a charming neighbor), part indictment of commercialism, part defense of letting children be children as long as they can, and part legal thriller (well, sort of). Mostly, the film, written and directed by George Seaton, is an irresistible bit of Christmas whimsy made unforgettable by Edmund Gwenn’s turn as the man who might be Santa.
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Photo: Everett Collection
What else? Really, what other film could top a list of the greatest Christmas movies of all time? Frank Capra’s enduring classic stars Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey, the unwitting savior of Bedford Falls, a man whose goodness and generosity has touched more people than he realizes. In fact, as one bleak Christmas looms, he doesn’t realize it at all and is ready to commit suicide — until an angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) arrives to show him the error of his ways.
Though it’s become synonymous with holiday cheer, Capra’s film works because of its willingness to go to some dark places, and because of Stewart’s ability to play a gregarious goof one moment and a man whose world comes crashing down the next. Curiously, the film didn’t go into wide release until after Christmas in January of 1947, which might have contributed to its underwhelming box-office performance. But it received a second life thanks to relentless airings on local television in the ’70s and ’80s, where its depiction of one man’s dark night of the soul (and a nightmarish vision of what unrestrained greed looks like without those interested in fairness and justice to stand in the way of the Mr. Potters of the world) connected with a new generation.
It’s not hard to see why. It’s grounded in details of the times that inspired it — the Depression, World War II — but its vision of holiday kindness, and of the sort of country most of us would want to live in and the values of kindness and generosity most of us share, remains timeless.
Millennials might get sick and die faster than previous generations, but they’re less sensitive than baby boomers, according to a new study by Psychology and Aging.
The new study, published December 10, aims to understand how narcissistic traits vary among generations and how levels ofhellip;
Este ano os nacementos instalados nas parroquias do Val do Xestoso, que adoitan conter mensaxes críticas, fan fincapé no abandono do rural. O crego Luis Rodríguez Patiño, que hai dúas semanas criticou o posicionamento da Conferencia Episcopal contra o pacto PSOE-Unidas Podemos, conclúe que "unha aldea calada é unha aldea esquecida"
The 2010s was the decade that wellness shed its fringe, hippie-dippy connotations and exploded into mainstream consciousness. According to the New York Times, the term was first coined in the 1950s, which is apparently when people figured out that there was more to health than reactively treating illness. Now, the term is so ubiquitous it’s hard to imagine life without it. So what, exactly, is wellness? It's fuddy-duddy health's hot younger sister. “It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity.” Fly to Bali for a meditation retreat, or slather yourself in skincare products that cost more than a new washer/dryer combo; that’s wellness, baby. Drink some water or just b r e a t h e sometimes (because, duh, your insurance doesn’t cover therapy!!), and that’s wellness too.
It also happens to be incredibly profitable. Because “wellness” is so vague (it’s hard to argue with “listen to your body”) and also everyone feels kind of terrible all the time, wellness is fertile ground for entrepreneurial types peddling practices and products they insisted—with no real proof—would change our lives. In 2018, a non-profit called the Global Wellness Institute said the industry was booming (it grew 12.8% from 2015–2017), and valued at $4.2 trillion.
But whether you engaged in wellness this decade in the pursuit of optimization or just in lieu of like, actual healthcare, it’s undeniable that you probably encountered some pretty wild trends along the way. Did you also almost pass out during CrossFit, or accidentally broil your vag with a Goop-recommended yoni steaming? Double fist bone broth and kombucha while furiously performing barre exercises to prepare for your next Tough Mudder? Fidget spin for hours to distract yourself from the teatox ravaging your insides? Catch measles from a wealthy, unvaccinated third-grader? Then help us pick the worst wellness trend of the past 10 years!
Hunter French
Between Dec. 16 and Dec. 20, you'll be able to vote via Twitter polls for the things you believe made us stray furthest from God's light. (Matchups 1-16 will happen throughout the day on Monday; matchups 17-32 will kick-off on Tuesday. You can revisit this post every day to see winners and links to the latest updates.) Ranging from the overhyped to the straight-up dangerous, the things we ate and did and wore “for our health” are worth taking a look back on—if only to laugh, and then make sure to never, ever do them again.
Hunter French
Matchup 1
Menstrual cups—Mark this as the decade in which many people began fisting themselves in public restrooms, in order to empty their menstrual cups. Long popular in other countries, the menstrual cup went mainstream, big-time, in the U.S. in the latter half of the decade—even traditional tampon makers manufacture their own versions now. Cups are firmly chaotic good; they’re good for the environment, but you can’t use them without getting covered in your own blood.
MMA—MMA has been a competitive sport for some time, but in the 2010s, it enjoyed a moment of popularity as a workout… until everyone realized it’s too violent to reasonably pursue much beyond throwing some practice punches and doing some very light grappling. Arm bars hurt.
Matchup 2
The Shake Weight—The Shake Weight, a dumbbell that shifts around as you essentially jerk it off, was invented to capitalize on a nationwide fixation on Michelle Obama's toned arms. More than two million of them were reportedly sold after the 2010 debut of a lurid advertisement—in which women demonstrated how to use the device (again, by giving it a vigorous handjob)—that went viral.
Juices/juicing—Is juicing fruits and vegetables any healthier than simply eating fresh produce whole? No. Is there any scientific evidence that proves that drinking something like celery juice, which had a moment in 2018 thanks to self-professed “psychic healer” Anthony William, will reduce inflammation, boost your immune system, reduce your risk of cancer, or sustain your microbiomes (whatever the hell those are)? No. Is a fancy bottle of cold-pressed juice cheaper than a week’s worth of produce? No. Nevertheless, juicing persisted, becoming one of the biggest wellness trends of the past 10 years.
Matchup 3
Microdosing—Microdosing, or the act of regularly consuming a small amount of a psychedelic like LSD or psilocybin, rose to popularity in late 2015 among (where else?) Silicon Valley circles. The practice has been touted as a way to increase productivity and creativity. But microdosing is also just... being high at work, something not everyone can get away with.
Kale—In 2011, Gwenyth Paltrow (a harbinger for many items in this bracket) went on Ellen to demonstrate kale chips, and since then, the leafy green has known no peace. It has been massaged, chopped, baked, fried, and left to wilt in the homes of countless Americans, who, it now seems, are ready to abandon it.
Matchup 4
Keto—Keto, or the “ketogenic diet,” is a high-fat, low-carb meal plan designed to send the body into a state called “ketosis” and burn up stored fat; it spiked in popularity around 2017. Studies have shown it has benefits for people looking to control neurological disorders like epilepsy. Otherwise, it’s potentially bad for your brain because it deprives it of the glucose it needs to run smoothly. Plus, it’s notoriously hard to sustain. Have you ever gone out to eat while doing keto? It’s almost as bad as going out to eat with someone who’s doing keto.
Isagenix—Isagenix is a brand that combines two of everyone’s favorite things: multi-level marketing schemes, and an extreme low-calorie diet in the form of weight-loss drinks and foods. It’s been around since 2002, but enjoyed a moment in 2015, and it continues to advertise to vulnerable populations through multilevel marketing.
Matchup 5
Cryotherapy—The thinking behind cryotherapy is that, if ice packs help reduce muscle pain after workouts, then so will stripping down and standing in a booth in sub-freezing temperatures. There's no science to back up that cryo will help with soreness—but what it can do is give you frostbite, as Olympic champion sprinter Justin Gaitlin illustrated when he showed up to the 2011 World Championships with his feet scarred after he wore sweaty socks in a cryo booth.
#nodaysoff—Because of our deep aversion to loving ourselves, we closed the decade bragging about #grinding, #nevernotworking, and taking #nodaysoff from our jobs on social media. Come on, bb, let’s get that bread and that engagement! It’s not like the labor movement of the late 19th and early 20th century worked tirelessly to get us weekends, paid time off, the 40-hour week, and other necessary reprieves from capitalism’s clutches or anything!
Standing desks—In 2011, people rushed to rearrange their office spaces after a New York Times story quoted a doctor who said that sitting all day—like a lot of us do at our desks—is "lethal." Standing desks were supposed to be the solution to this, but even though they're somewhat helpful, they don't fully counteract the problems of sitting unless you're actually moving around. Rats.
Bone broth—Every January since 2015, Google searches for bone broth have popped. A natural extension of the paleo, protein, collagen, and “clean eating” trends, bone broth is made by simmering animal bones in water… but enthusiasts claim it’s better than regular stock because it cooked for hours longer, thus pulling more nutrients from the bones. Bone broth promised to heal your gut, strengthen your bones and immune system, and give you healthier hair and skin. By 2016, you could make it in your Keurig. :(
Matchup 8
Collagen—You are what you eat… or, at least, that’s what we tell ourselves when we chow down on some collagen. The tissue-binding protein, which one dermatologist described as “the glue that holds the body together,” has become a $100 million industry over the past few years, with consumers gobbling down chewables, powders, and capsules of the stuff with the hope of increasing collagen production, reducing wrinkles, and looking younger. Does it work? Perhaps. There are some studies that suggest collagen supplements might improve skin elasticity and decrease signs of aging, though, as The New York Timespointed out in a recent deep-dive into collagen’s effectiveness, a lot of those studies are small and paid for by companies trying to sell us the stuff.
Chia seeds—One of the early "superfoods" that was strangely accessible (because they are, quite literally, the same seeds that produce Chia Pets). chia seeds first caught on as an addition to overnight oats (remember those?) in 2013. They magically add fiber to any dish and infinite wellness blogs purport them to be “filling”, but they also sometimes taste like dirt. They fell somewhat out of favor when bougie grocery stores starting packing them in tiny bags at an enormous markup.
Hunter French
Matchup 9
Quinoa—Though it's been around for thousands of years, quinoa, the ancient whole grain with origins in Peru and Bolivia, crested in popularity in Western culture over the past decade… right alongside Americans' aversion to simple carbohydrates. In fact, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization declared 2013 the "International Year of Quinoa." So throw it in a bowl! Watch those wild li'l spirals unwind! Remember that expensive fast-casual restaurants for the upwardly mobile didn't invent this! It's called quinoa, baby.
FitBits—Even though humans have had the ability to walk for millennia, this decade is when we decided to really get into walking, and the FitBit will forever live as a relic of this time. When aliens write their textbooks on the history of the Earth, FitBits will be documented as a mostly forgettable device that gently nudged us off our asses... at least until they all inevitably broke, and were shoved away in some drawer.
Matchup 10
Gut bacteria—Doctors have only begun to realize that gut microbiomes are an indicator of health, and that certain things like eating more fiber and probiotics can help maintain them. But with new findings come predators trying to capitalize, like those pushing cures for “leaky gut syndrome” and unproven diets personalized to one’s microbiome.
Not vaccinating your children—Being anti-vax is extremely stupid and actively harmful, and is the rare value shared by extremely wealthy liberals and Republicans. People who neglect to vaccinate their kids mostly do so because they’re worried about disproven side effects like autism. Vaccines are so soundly safe and medically advisable, that not believing in them is like thinking chemtrails are what happen when angels fart.
Matchup 11
Meditation—What haven’t people tried to cure with the ancient practice of meditation? Opioid addiction, depression, and anxiety are just a few conditions that have found themselves in the meditation crosshairs. Transcendental meditation, in particular, began having a moment in 2011. While meditation is itself not a bad thing, no one could accuse us of under-applying it.
Nootropics—A late entry into the dumb things we did this decade, nootropics are essentially just supplements like vitamins or OTC “male enhancement” tablets, but “for the brain.” Like many things on this list, the sweaty insecurity of Silicon Valley dwellers is to blame for this one.
Matchup 12
Apple cider vinegar—Instagram loves apple cider vinegar, which is supposed to be something of a cure-all: ACV will solve indigestion! Get rid of dandruff! Take care of a sore throat, reflux, and eczema! People use it topically for skin and hair issues, and take shots of it (diluted with water, one hopes) for digestive and other internal issues. There is no evidence it has any health benefits whatsoever, unless you're eating a salad underneath it—it makes for delicious dressing.
Mindfulness—Mindfulness is the act of being present in a given moment through meditation and other mental training, rather than spending the present lost in rumination or distracted thought. It originated in Eastern religious practices, but grew popular thanks to endorsements from the likes of Oprah in the mid-2010s; Time Magazine declared the advent of a “mindful revolution” in 2014. Now, it’s basically the copy-paste solution for any mental health woe one could experience and has ballooned into a $4 billion industry. Deep breaths, deep breaths.
Matchup 13
Coconut water—Coconut water is water-like fluid harvested from the inside of young coconuts. Its sales doubled in 2011 and has enjoyed a steady popularity ever since thanks to its successful marketing as a healthy alternative to sports drinks and carbonated beverages. It is a natural source of potassium and electrolytes. But so are a lot of things. And coconut water, if I recall correctly, kind of tastes like cum.
Organic period products—In prior decades, it was enough to merely consume organic food; throughout the 2010s, the “organic” concept was expanded to include essentially anything that goes into your body. Despite no real scientific evidence that regular tampons are “toxic,” Gwyneth Paltrow suggested they might be, and so organic period products became incredibly trendy. This trend—which is still going strong, by the way—is particularly noxious because it frightened regular people into spending even more money on already expensive, overly taxed health products.
Matchup 14
Activated charcoal—While it has long proven effective at treating overdoses and improving digestion, activated charcoal got a cute new wellness makeover during the 2010s, popping up in everything from toothpaste to ice cream by mid-decade, largely thanks to its super Instagrammable, rich black color. Unfortunately, putting activated charcoal in something like ice cream has, if anything, a detrimental effect, sucking the calcium, potassium, and other vitamins right out of the frozen dairy treat before your stomach can absorb them.
Protein—After we thoroughly vilified carbs and fats, everyone realized that protein was the only macro left that we were allowed to eat. Diets front-loading protein— including Atkins, paleo, and keto—surged in popularity during the 2010s, and the boogeyman of “getting enough protein” continues to haunt everyone to this day.
Matchup 15
Tough Mudder—In 2010, Tough Mudder (and, later, Spartan Race and Warrior Dash) invited participants to run through mud, crawl under barbed wire and across giant nets, carry other entrants on their backs, and “work together to form a human pyramid against the steep, slick wall to get over the top.” By 2014, Racked reported, “Tough Mudder has soiled over 1.5 million participants... more than 4,000 of them even have Tough Mudder tattoos.” Thanks to the huge cost of putting them on—including the major marketing campaigns intended to convince people that they were actually safe—and the fact that most people do them once and are like “I’m good,” the races’ future remains uncertain.
CBD—CBD was undeniably the hottest wellness trend of 2019. CBD is a cannabis-derived chemical compound purported to produce a calming effect without the typical weed high, and its popularity exploded when it became gray-area legal thanks to hemp’s legalization. CBD is basically available everywhere, in many forms, but buyer beware: It’s still not federally regulated—thanks to FDA stall tactics—and that’s a big part of why it usually… doesn’t… do anything.
Matchup 16
Teatoxes—In the early 2010s, there was an explosion of “fit teas” with names like Bootea, Skinny Me Tea, and Flat Tummy Tea. Despite seeming to come out of nowhere, the brands apparently had big enough #sponcon budgets to get into the hands of influencers and A-list celebrities who shamelessly promoted them on Instagram. The teas promised to help you “feel light” or “fight bloat”... thanks to the help of senna, an FDA-approved ingredient that is essentially a laxative. In reality, they either did nothing or made you shit your brains out.
Fidget spinners—Fidget toys were supposed to reduce anxiety and help people concentrate; advocates claimed the toys could be especially helpful for kids who are on the autism spectrum or have ADHD. In December 2016, Forbes named them the “must have office toy for 2017.” By spring, they occupied every one of the top 20 bestseller slots in the "Toys and Games" category on Amazon, schools were banning them, and kids were choking on them.
Bulletproof coffee—Also known as “coffee with butter in it,” bulletproof coffee took hold in the Bay Area in mid-2014, with many coffee shops blending melted butter into hot coffee. That was it. People claimed drinking this beverage instead of breakfast suppressed hunger and promoted weight loss. As you can see, it worked and everyone is thin now.
Matchup 18
Essential oils—Scented, plant-derived oils surged in popularity around 2017, in part thanks to wellness conspiracists like InfoWars' Alex Jones and Goop's Gwyneth Paltrow, who marketed their purported health benefits to their followers. Multi-level marketing companies like doTerra and Young Living also popped on Facebook, where distributors push them to their friends, claiming they can cure… just about anything a person might like for them to. Medical science points out that they're possibly good for aromatherapy—but that you might want to also try actual medicine for what ails you instead of what amounts to homeopathic perfume.
Adaptogens—While adaptogens—like so many other modern wellness “trends”—have roots in Chinese and Ayurvedic healing traditions, a lot of (white) people came to the herbs in the twenty-teens via Gwyneth Paltrow. The most famous adaptogen of this era was the GOOP-approved Sex Dust®, “a stimulating adaptogenic blend of Shatavari, Shilajit, Epimedium, Schisandra, Cacao & Maca” that “ignite[s] creative energy, in & out of the bedroom” and costs $38 for 1.5 ounces.
Matchup 19
The moon—Given the Moon’s historical associations with some kind of divine feminine, it’s no wonder that the modern wellness industry—which often targets female consumers whose experiences with mainstream medicine have been alienating and unsatisfying—commodified the shit out of li’l baby roundie in the 2010s. There was Moon Milk (a.k.a., hot milk with added spices, honey, and nutrient-dense supplements called “adaptogens”); Moon Juice (a wellness brand that sells stuff like Beauty Dust and Yoni Oil); and apps like Co-Star (teaching people what to say when their Tinder date asks them “What’s your moon sign?”) Even non-wellness brands got in on the action, selling moon phase-themed home décor and moon-shaped jewelry to crunchy aunts in Vermont and women from L.A. who wear those big floppy-brimmed hats. Congrats to the Moon for selling out!
Whole30—Scientifically speaking, Whole30 is a diet; its creators, however, would prefer that you consider it an entire lifestyle overhaul, a way to heal your body’s woes with carefully selected food. Like with most draconian diets, the two major problems with #Whole30 is that it is so obsessive it hedges on disordered eating; and it’s impossible to follow without talking about it constantly.
Matchup 20
Cauliflower rice/zoodles—Who didn’t buy a zoodler or ricer three-ish years ago? It seemed so fun: all the delightful shape of pasta but without the dreaded carbs. Wellness blogs and influencers pushed this for years before everyone realized these versions of wet mush are no substitute for the real thing, and carbs are not actually the enemy.
Oil pulling—Oil pulling, or swishing an oil around one’s teeth for 10-20 minutes at a time, comes from a time before we had anything resembling modern dentistry. Yet in 2014, everyone started talking about it. Then everyone realized it was gross, time consuming, and didn’t replace regular brushing. Ah, well.
Matchup 21
Rock climbing—Was the 2017 deluge of dating app photos of men rock climbing worth any of the health benefits people got from rock climbing? The matter is extremely debatable. Still, rock gyms where people could climb walls with the literal and figurative support of their rock climbing peers are going to remain popular into the next decade.
Arianna Huffington’s $65 phone bed—Step back into the fever dream that was Arianna Huffington’s mid-2010s rebrand as the “Queen of Sleep,” as one SELF contributor called her. In 2016, the billionaire author and businesswoman published The Sleep Revolution, and the following year she began selling a $65 phone bed through one of her companies, Thrive Global. The phone bed is exactly what it sounds like. “You put your phone under the blanket and you tuck it in and say goodnight,” she told a CNBC reporter in 2017. Despite the fact that no piece of overpriced doll furniture ever could solve capitalism, the phone bed remains available for purchase.
Matchup 22
Hair gummies—Thanks to the pioneering efforts of The Bachelor’s most shameless castoffs in the mid-2010s, the world got sold on the idea that a blue pastel gummy bear could maybe give us luxurious locks. But do hair growth gummies really work? Publications have been asking that question since at least as far back as 2015, and, despite the completely static scientific evidence about biotin’s ability to strengthen brittle nails and make hair grow thicker and faster (it’s insufficient, babes!), they always come to the same conclusion: We should write a blog about it and “find out.” Meanwhile, in 2019, influencer overlords James Charles and Tati Westbrook almost murdered each other over SugarBearHair promo. As Natasha from America’s Next Top Model Cycle 8 would say, some people have war in their countries!
Intermittent fasting—”What even is intermittent fasting?” became a popular question at the end of this decade, typically followed by, “Isn’t that just… skipping breakfast?” Basically, yes. There are a few different popular models that people follow, and all of them involve “mindfully” not eating for some period of time, under the guise of “wellness.” The limited studies on IF were mostly performed on mice, so, if you’re not currently in a fast period, take the evidence on this diet with a tremendous grain of salt.
Matchup 23
Seltzer—You may feel like a beacon of virtuous hydration if you're never without a seltzer close at hand (even if it erodes the enamel on your teeth if you drink it constantly, or by itself without food). This may be because, somewhere between 2010 and 2015, more and more people started to ride the La Croix wave and continue to surf those same carbonated Peach-Pear tides today. It's not just this one brand, though—SodaStreams, though ethically contentious in 2014 (coincidentally, the same year I blew mine up trying to carbonate a bottle of vodka), were hugely popular in the 2010s, and seltzer's popularity has now blossomed into a national obsession with canned alcoholic seltzers like Truly and White Claw (arguably a better approach to carbonated booze than my own). People just love this churched-up water.
Peloton—A Peloton is a $2,200+ exercise bike with a screen attached that allows riders to stream Peloton workout classes ($39/month), from the comfort of their beautifully sparse Black Mirror-esque homes. The brand—which is beloved by celebrities like Hugh Jackman and other unknown Rich People—was founded in 2012 and has been “selling happiness” (again, for $2,245 + $39/month) ever since. If you are looking for a vaguely culty bougie fitness trend to get into, but can’t afford to buy a Peloton for yourself, there’s always the possibility that Hubby will gift you one.
Matchup 24
Kombucha—Kombucha is a fizzy fermented drink that tastes like alcohol (not in a good way) but is not actually alcoholic. Lovers of the yeasty bev claim it helps with digestion (thanks to probiotics) and rids your body of “toxins.” Around 2014, several kombucha brands launched, and true fans started making their own at home (which requires something called a SCOBY or “Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast”—yum!). But for all its faults, kombucha did bring us this good meme.
My Fitness Pal—This app, which allows users to document the foods they eat and the exercise they do, made counting calories (also a practice common to eating disorders, by the way) mainstream when it topped the first edition of Consumer Reports' dieting-program ratings in 2013. CICO, or logging one's "calories in, calories out" is the colloquial term for the app's central approach to weight loss (which is also highly evangelized on the popular subreddit r/loseit), and My Fitness Pal is how its followers log their daily bread. There are now more than 140 million MFP users, meaning a whole lot more of us who now know exactly how many calories are in cherry Blow Pops, hummus, Flamin' Hot Cheetos, and everything else we put into our bodies.
Hunter French
Matchup 25
Waist trainers—"Who doesn't love to feel tight & right?!?" wrote Khloe Kardashian in a 2014 Instagram caption underneath a photo of herself in what appeared to be a tight black corset. She and her sisters Kim and Kourtney proceeded to wallpaper the internet with photos of themselves wearing waist trainers, often while working out. The compressive abdominal sleeves squinch their wearers' stomachs restrictively, supposedly to target fat loss around that area and help you sweat more. This has no basis in science, and is actually mad dangerous, no matter how "tight and right" they purport to make their wearers feel in a gym selfie.
All the milks—The 2010s saw an explosion of “milks” that aren’t actually milk, much to the chagrin of the dairy milk industry, which launched a legal battle against the plant-based milk industry over their flagrant use the term “milk.” I, too, take issue with all the new non-milk milks, but not because they call themselves milk. There’s just too many of them! Look, I love oat milk as much as the next white woman, but between oat, soy, almond, coconut, cashew, pea, and hemp—not to mention all your standard dairy milk variétals—there are simply too many milks now!
Matchup 26
Matcha—Every cafe in 2015 was serving matcha, a powdered green tea that appeared first in 12th century Japan. Matcha has a meticulous preparation process that involves whipping the powder into water with a particular type of whisk, because the mindfulness aspect of creating the tea is supposed to be equally as important to one’s health as the tea itself. Eventually people realized they didn’t have time for this between meetings.
Barre—Despite being around in the U.S. since the early ‘70s, barre—a boutique fitness class where regular people pay upwards of $30 to do tiny, isometric moves, meant to give them the physique of a professional ballerina—exploded throughout the decade. By 2015, Pure Barre (one of the biggest barre chains in the U.S.) had opened nearly 300 studios; it’s since become impossible to go anywhere without seeing hordes of women in Lululemon tights and barre-themed graphic tees.
Matchup 27
CrossFit—Sorry to everyone who has no desire to hear the word “WOD” (workout of the day, pronounced wad) thrown around in casual conversation like it’s a giant tire. CrossFit, a no-frills workout class with timed activities like Olympic lifts, headstand pushups, and flipping tires, exploded in the twenty-teens. But anyone who is Facebook friends with a CrossFit enthusiast already knew that.
Crystals—Crystals are gorgeous rocks that believers say harness energy, which can then be used to heal, to attract, and to manifest (or, at least, look nice on a table). The trend apparently sprang out of an uptick in interest in quartz jewelry around 2007, and gained traction throughout the decade. We’re still in the thick of it, even though crystal mining is deeply unethical and environmentally unsound. At least it’s also proven pseudoscience!
Matchup 28
"Cool girl" vitamins—From bidets to toothbrushes to face rollers, the budding direct-to-consumer wellness industry excels at making decades-old products seem hot, fresh, new, and somehow superior. Case in point: companies like Ritual and Care/of, which ushered in a new age of “cool girl vitamins” with “super shareable” packaging and branding despite literally just selling the same old stuff that our moms have been buying for years.
TRX—TRX, or the more general “suspension training,” is a kind of workout that popped in early 2018 and involves using woven nylon straps suspended from the ceiling. It sounds cool and futuristic, but imagine the disappointment when we all got to the TRX class held at the local gym, only to find out it’s still pushups and rows, just harder.
Matchup 29
Clean eating—Clean eating, a fairly vague method of consuming strictly “whole” or “unprocessed” foods, was a major addition to the “it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change” canon. Thanks to the tireless work of young, thin, white female Instagram influencers, it became a trendy umbrella term that can include nearly anything—vegetarian, vegan, raw-vegan, sugar-free, gluten-free—but almost always includes cauliflower “pizza.”
No Fap/No Nut November—No Nut November is a trend rooted in mens’ proclivity toward doing stupid shit that harms only themselves for no reason and/or for reasons rooted in deeply held misogyny. The Reddit-based challenge involves simply… not orgasming for a month, despite this having no health benefit or implication at all.
Matchup 30
Soylent—Soylent is a line of meal replacement products, best known in ready-made beverage form. It hit the U.S. marketplace in 2014 after one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns ever, and has remained a hit with engineers and people who hate eating food. Its original flavor tastes like extra bland cereal, and its founder has been explicit about his desire to completely obliterate food. Good luck with that.
SoulCycle—That recent dystopian Peloton ad makes it easy to forget when SoulCycle, the boutique chain of indoor group cycling studios (which now boasts over 80 locations in North America and the U.K.) was the hot new bougie wellness craze… at least among the wealthy, coastal types who lived near one of the exclusive studios and could afford to pay $35 a class to visit. But at the end of the decade, SoulCycle was dealing with a failed IPO, Peloton’s emergence as a bona fide competitor, and the news that Stephen Ross (the parent company’s chairman) was fundraising for Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. Chrissy Tiegan boycotted, the CEO stepped down, and Manhattan’s woke trophy wives were left wondering how they’d tone their asses going forward.
Matchup 31
e-cigs/juul—The rapid glow-up (and even-more-rapid fall) of e-cigs and vapes was pretty incredible. At the beginning of the decade, e-cigs were cumbersome contraptions that earned their users a fair amount of bullying; cut to 2018, and everyone (including teens) could be found sucking on their JUULs. The decade comes to a close with vaping’s safety in serious question.
Vaginal steaming—Vaginal steaming is sort of what it sounds like: You steam some water, add a blend of herbs, and squat, all in the pursuit of a “cleaner”… vagina. Vaginal steaming caught some heat after Gwyneth Paltrow recommended the procedure on Goop in 2015, and a bunch of gynecologists were immediately like, “Hey, don’t do that, you could burn your vagina and also, it’s a self-cleaning oven.”
Matchup 32
Paleo—The paleo diet, which hit big in January 2014, is based on the idea that for optimal health, we should all be eating like cave people did—because, the thinking goes, humans haven’t evolved enough to be able to eat foods like dairy, legumes, or even potatoes without it leading to health problems. It’s mostly just a low-carb, high-protein diet, and despite the fact that there’s no real evidence backing it up—and only a cop would ban potatoes—it’s probably the reason there are now 30 types of artisanal jerky brands with names like “Mastadon” and “Prîmatîv” available at Whole Foods.
Kingsley was most famous for his 1969 song “Popcorn,” which was one of the first electronic singles to hit the airwaves. The song became a hit for the group Hot Butter in 1972, and Crazy Frog revived it again in 2005. (Aphex Twin and Muse have covered it, too). Kingsley also co-wrote “Baroque Hoedown,” which was used as the theme song to Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade, with fellow synth pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey. His song “Rebirth” has been sampled in multiple hip-hop songs, including Freddie Gibbs’ and Madlib’s “Soul Right.”
En los libros de historia del cine es raro encontrar nombres de mujeres, a no ser que estemos hablando de actrices. Sin embargo, desde que existe el cine existen directoras, productoras, guionistas, operadoras de cámara… También compositoras, y las de ciencia-ficción rompieron más moldes que nadie.
Durante estos últimos años, la prensa ha empezado a mencionar a algunas compositoras de cine. Los nombres que más suenan son Mica Levi (Under the Skin, Jackie…) y Hildur Guðnadóttir (Chernobyl, Joker…). Más allá de eso, entre tanto John Williams, Hans Zimmer y Danny Elfman, parece que nunca antes una mujer hubiese compuesto una banda sonora. La realidad es otra muy distinta.
Existen compositoras de bandas sonoras desde que existe el cine. Esas compositoras no son rarezas aisladas, hay muchas y han compuesto música para películas de todos los géneros. Uno de los casos más llamativos es el de las compositoras de ciencia ficción. El cine de ciencia-ficción sería muy distinto si no hubiesen existido una serie de mujeres que se atrevieron a ir más allá de los instrumentos tradicionales y los arreglos orquestales.
Las primeras compositoras de cine
Cuando se inventó el cine, ese cine al que se suele llamar «mudo», ninguna película era muda. En las salas había siempre alguien añadiendo algún tipo de banda sonora. Lo más habitual era música de piano u órgano. Entre las personas que se ganaban la vida haciendo ese trabajo, había muchas mujeres. Algunas de esas pioneras no se limitaban a tocar piezas de acompañamiento. La estadounidense Alice Smythe Jay, por ejemplo, compuso bandas sonoras y desarrolló métodos para sincronizar imagen y sonido.
Aunque a veces parezca que el cine es cosa de EE. UU. y que en el resto del mundo el panorama era -y es- muy distinto, a principios del siglo XX había mujeres creando e interpretando bandas sonoras en muchos países. Por mencionar a algunas: la sueca Greta Håkansson, la rusa Nina Agadzhanova-Shutko y la irlandesa Louise Macdonald. Estas mujeres ponían música a todo tipo de cine, desde melodramas de época a fantasía, ciencia-ficción y terror. Era música más o menos clásica y tradicional, el particular sonido de la ciencia ficción no llegó hasta los años cincuenta.
Bebe Barron y la primera banda sonora electrónica
Se suele decir que la primera banda sonora electrónica fue la de Planeta prohibido (1956). Esa banda sonora fue creada por una pareja: Bebe y Louis Barron. Bebe había estudiado música en la Universidad de Minnesota. Más tarde se trasladó a Nueva York, donde además de seguir estudiando consiguió trabajo en una compañía discográfica. En esa época, se casó con Louis, quien también era músico. Bebe tenía estudios en ciencias políticas y Louis había trabajado con material electrónico, así que sus intereses eran un poco distintos a los de la mayoría de músicos de cine.
Cuando se casaron, un primo de Louis les regaló una grabadora de cassette alemana. Ese tipo de grabadoras no existían todavía en EE. UU. Bebe y Louis tenían material que no tenía nadie más. Compositores contemporáneos tan conocidos como John Cage y Edgard Varèse crearon algunas de sus primeras piezas electrónicas gracias a los Barron.
Bebe grababa, cortaba y pegaba cintas para generar sonidos extraños. Como tanto a ella como a su marido les interesaban los sistemas sociales y la tecnología, empezaron a investigar la cibernética -que estudia los sistemas de comunicación y regulación automática de los seres vivos y los aplica a sistemas electrónicos y mecánicos-. Esa fue la inspiración de Bebe y Louis para construir circuitos electrónicos sonoros basados en ecuaciones matemáticas.
Los músicos consideraban que lo que hacían los Barron no era música, así que Bebe y Louis se relacionaban más con la escena del arte contemporáneo que con músicos en sí. Eso fue lo que los llevó al cine, en el que se introdujeron de la mano de artistas como Ian Hugo. Normalmente, Louis generaba y grababa sonidos y Bebe era quien los revisaba, seleccionaba y organizaba en composiciones. Se cree que Bebe fue la primera persona que creó un tape loop, un bucle de sonido hecho con cintas de casete.
Esos experimentos llamaron la atención de la MGM, que buscaba efectos sonoros novedosos para la película Planeta prohibido. La música la iba a crear otra persona, pero al estudio le fascinó tanto lo que hacían los Barron que al final les encargaron todo el trabajo. Hubo algunos encontronazos, porque había cosas que al director del departamento musical le parecían demasiado extrañas.
Aunque este tipo de sonidos nos parezcan lo normal en el contexto de la ciencia- ficción, en su momento fueron polémicos. El título de crédito de la música tenía que poner Electronic Music by Louis and Bebe Barron, pero la American Federation of Musicians consideró que eso no era música y los obligaron a cambiarlo por Electronic Tonalities. El sindicato de músicos no admitió a los Barron y eso les negó la posibilidad de optar a premios como los Oscars.
Afortunadamente, el público no reaccionó de la misma manera. Cuando presentaron la película, el sonido estaba sincronizado directamente desde las cintas y se escuchaba a más volumen del habitual para la época. Además era en estéreo, algo muy raro en las salas de cine de los años cincuenta. La propia Bebe explica que los espectadores se emocionaban tanto que aplaudían cada efecto sonoro. A pesar del éxito de la propuesta, por culpa del problema con el sindicato de músicos, los Barron no volvieron a trabajar nunca para una película comercial.
Daphne Oram y el sonido de lo espeluznante
Daphne Oram era de un pequeño pueblo inglés. Durante su infancia y adolescencia repartía el tiempo entre aprender piano y composición y ayudar a su hermano a construir transmisores y receptores de radio. A los 17 años, le ofrecieron una plaza en el Royal College of Music, una prestigiosa institución en la que era difícil entrar. La rechazó para trabajar de ingeniera de sonido en la BBC, porque le interesaban más las máquinas que la música tradicional.
En la BBC pudo empezar a usar osciloscopios y otros dispositivos electrónicos que no estaban al alcance de la mayoría de músicos. Durante una visita profesional a la RTF (la radiotelevisón pública francesa), Daphne conoció a Pierre Schaeffer, el padre de la música concreta, y empezó a experimentar con cintas de cassette. Desde entonces, se centró en crear música electrónica usando grabadoras, mesas de mezclas, osciladores y su propio sintetizador, el Oramics.
Usando todas esas sonoridades chocantes para los oyentes de los años 40, creó música y efectos sonoros para películas, televisión y radio. Trabajó para todo tipo de cine, desde la acción de James Bond al terror de Suspense (1961). Muchas veces su nombre no aparece en los títulos de crédito porque se dedicaba más a generar sonidos insólitos que a componer bandas sonoras.
Su trabajo para la ciencia-ficción se desarrolló sobre todo en la televisión y en la radio. El ejemplo más conocido es la serie Quatermass and the Pit (1958-59), en la que el doctor Quatermass encuentra una nave alienígena de maligna influencia. Para la radio trabajó sobre todo en radioteatro, creando música y sonido para obras de diversos géneros, entre ellos ciencia-ficción y fantasía.
Aunque Daphne no compuso ninguna banda sonora completa para una película de ciencia-ficción, su trabajo de investigación y creación es uno de los pilares fundamentales del sonido del cine de género actual.
Delia Derbyshire y Doctor Who
Delia Derbyshire había estudiado, como Daphne Oram, piano desde pequeña. No obstante, al contrario que en el caso de Daphne, su obsesión con los sonidos no musicales no tenía nada que ver con los transmisores de radio. Vivía en una zona en la que era habitual oír sirenas de alarma, por lo que creció fascinada por los sonidos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En la universidad, se graduó en música y matemáticas. Como a Bebe y a Delia, le interesaba tanto el arte como la ciencia. Quería ser ingeniera de sonido, no interprete, que hubiera sido la elección más fácil en los años cincuenta.
Cuando terminó su formación académica, su objetivo era conseguir un trabajo en los estudios de grabación de Decca Records, pero le dijeron que no contrataban a mujeres. Para sobrevivir, estuvo una temporada dando clases de música y matemáticas y trabajando en temas de promoción musical. En los años sesenta consiguió entrar en la BBC, allí se enteró de que existía el BBC Radiophonic Workshop y pidió trabajar en él. El BBC Radiophonic Workshop fue uno de los primeros departamentos de televisión dedicado a los efectos sonoros. Se fundó gracias a un grupo de ingenieros de sonido, compositores, productores y ejecutivos de la BBC, entre ellos Daphne Oram.
A Delia le fascinaban las máquinas y la tecnología, pero también los sonidos de la vida cotidiana. Grababa muchos sonidos de la naturaleza y del entorno urbano o doméstico que luego manipulaba para conseguir efectos curiosos. Trabajó sobre todo para televisión, cortometrajes, documentales y radio. La banda sonora más famosa de la historia de la ciencia-ficción televisiva no hubiese existido sin ella. Me estoy refiriendo, obviamente, a Doctor Who.
Aunque la partitura de los créditos de Doctor Who es de Ron Grainer, un compositor australiano que trabajaba para la BBC, fue Delia quien le dio forma. Ron escribió las notas básicas de la melodía en una página y la envió desde Portugal, donde vivía en aquel entonces, dejando todo el trabajo al BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Delia recibió el encargo con entusiasmo, porque una partitura tan escueta le daba libertad para crear lo que ella quisiese. Usó osciladores y grabó, cortó y pegó sonidos en cintas de casete. Utilizó también diversos efectos, como ralentizaciones, y el resto es historia…
Ron Grainer se quedó tan estupefacto cuando escuchó el tema por primera vez que pidió a la BBC que en los créditos constase el nombre de ambos, porque él no había hecho gran cosa. La BBC se negó por cuestiones de políticas internas sobre cómo debían incluirse los compositores en los títulos de crédito.
En los años sesenta, cuando todavía trabajaba en la BBC, Delia fundó Unit Delta Plus, un grupo que se dedicaba tanto a crear música electrónica como a promocionarla. Grabaron temas y tocaron en algunos festivales de música electrónica y experimental. A partir de los años setenta, su vida se hundió en el caos por culpa de sus problemas con el alcohol.
Aunque no dejó nunca de hacer música, entre los años 70 y el 2000 no publicó prácticamente nada. En 2001 volvió durante un breve lapso de tiempo a la esfera pública, pero ya estaba muy consumida por el alcoholismo y murió ese mismo año debido a un fallo renal. Su legado no es solo importante para la ciencia-ficción: algunos de los músicos electrónicos más conocidos, entre ellos Aphex Twin, Chemical Brothers y Orbital, la suelen citar como una de sus mayores influencias.
Sin estas tres mujeres, el sonido de la ciencia-ficción sería muy distinto. A pesar de eso, es muy raro ver sus nombres en las historias del cine, o incluso de la música de cine. Son artistas que dentro del ámbito de la música electrónica son relativamente conocidas, pero en los márgenes de la historia cine casi nadie habla de ellas. Quizá no es solo porque sean mujeres: muchas veces se toma más en serio una banda sonora clásica que una electrónica, por mucho que a estas alturas ciertas partituras de cine ya no tengan mucho sentido.
No décimo aniversário da publicação do Entre Línguas, um dos primeiros produtos audiovisuais realizados polo movimento reintegracionista, vem a lume esta série de artigos em que pretendemos estudar do ponto de vista linguístico os cinco territórios raianos em que foi gravado este documentário. Acrescentam-se ainda mais duas localidades; uma salamanquina, a Bouça[1], onde o português já tinha desaparecido em 2009 e outra no Baixo Alentejo, Barrancos, em que se dá um fenómeno idiomático semelhante ainda que de signo contrário, pois nele o castelhano é a língua menorizada e hibridada com a estatal, o português.
Foi na Ascensão de 2007, numa dessas noites compostelanas de pub em pub, quando a ideia veio à cabeça do Eduardo Maragoto: vamos para o Xalma já! A mim não me deu convencido, no entanto à Vanessa Vilaverde sim. E cedinho, quase sem dormirem, partiram os dous armados de uma singela gravadora para aquele recanto raiano da Estremadura espanhola. Nesta viagem relâmpago apenas fizeram umas poucas entrevistas, mas já estabeleceram algum contacto, como o de Tonho Corredera, um intelectual valverdeiro.
Durante anos tínhamos escutado a teoria de que no norte da província de Cáceres havia três lugares que ainda falavam galego, como consequência de uma repovoação medieval. Lembro a minha surpresa, quando em 1991 no programa “Sitio Distinto” da TVG, o Reixa entrevistou um camionista valverdeiro. Certamente, o dele era um dialeto que parecia muito semelhante às nossas falas populares.
Eu já tinha visitado as três vilas em 2002, percebendo a proximidade linguística e ainda a simpatia que subitamente surgira entre aquelas gentes e o povo galego. Nessa altura, na Universidade de Vigo, Henrique Costas já levava anos organizando expedições para conhecer e investigar os “irmãos” perdidos…
Discentes ingénuos, docentes que viam aqui uma desejada internacionalização do idioma, nacionalistas à procura de colónias ultramontanas ou simples curiosos peregrinavam e peregrinam ao vale do rio das Elhas e os seus moradores, valverdeiros, manhegos e lagarteiros, correspondiam, e correspondem, hospitaleiros, felizes de que alguém se lembre de umas terras tão belas, quão esquecidas.
E foi assim que o Xalma apareceu nos mapas do galego (oficial), como as Ilhas Canárias aparecem nos do Reino Bourbónico, lá num cantinho.
Galego em Cáceres? O Eduardo não acreditava em repovoações medievais para explicar que naquela parte da Raia falassem, finalmente, umas formas de galego-português mais ou menos arcaicas, mais ou menos castelhanizadas, e convenceu-nos. Ai! como ajuda o reintegracionismo para compreendermos e conhecermos o galego.
Outro precedente deste documentário encontramo-lo na recolha que, em janeiro de 2008, fizéramos eu e o Eduardo polos concelhos de Negreira e Avanha. Neste caso usamos apenas um aparelho gravador de som antigo… ainda daqueles de cassetes! Incrível o que ali encontramos: Futuros do conjuntivo, dias da semana ditos à portuguesa, expressões como “por acaso”, lusismos raivosos, uma fonética… Meu Deus! Aqueles velhotes tinham data de caducidade, andavam na casa dos oitenta, noventa… Era preciso registá-los antes de perderem a vida ou a cabeça, pois como já sabemos a biologia é inexorável desde que na sopa primordial oceânica a instrução da morte foi marcada no DNA celular.
“Incrível o que ali encontramos: Futuros do conjuntivo, dias da semana ditos à portuguesa, expressões como “por acaso”, lusismos raivosos, uma fonética…”
E, por outra parte, no seio do movimento reintegracionista eram muitos os que vinham advertindo da necessidade de entrar no mundo audiovisual, mas a primeira peça demorava a aparecer…
Sabíamos da sobrevivência de mais quatro enclaves com dialetos raianos portugueses nas províncias espanholas de Samora, Salamanca, Cáceres e Badajoz, para além do Xalma. A hipótese de partida foi que os fenómenos linguísticos que se deram nestes territórios, onde o português esteve submetido durante séculos à pressão do castelhano, a língua oficial, deveriam guardar muitas semelhanças entre si, similitudes que se alargariam ao Xalma e mesmo às falas galegas submetidas, também, a um processo semelhante.
Assim foi que, para fazermos o documentário, escolhemos estes cinco territórios:
Calabor, no concelho de Pedralba de la Pradería, no leste da província de Samora e sem contacto territorial com a Galiza.
Almedilha, concelho do sul da província de Salamanca.
Região do Xalma, no norte da província de Cáceres, que compreende os concelhos de Valverde, São Martinho de Trevelho e as Elhas.
Ocidente da região de Alcântara, abrangendo os concelhos de Ferreira de Alcântara, o Casalinho e Valença de Alcântara, no sul da província de Cáceres, e o concelho da Codosseira[2], no norte da província de Badajoz.
Região de Olivença, próxima da cidade de Badajoz, que se estende polos concelhos de Olivença e Talega (este já sem falantes nativos).
Por fim, em outubro de 2008, lançamo-nos à aventura, uma pesquisa in situ (complementada previamente de uma ampla documentação bibliográfica). Compramos uma câmara de vídeo doméstica, um microfone de gravata e aos poucos dias estávamos a gravar em Calabor. Logo viriam Almedilha (já compráramos uma segunda câmara), Alcântara, Xalma e Olivença. Na realização das entrevistas tentamos abranger, no possível[3], todas as faixas etárias e ainda falantes espontâneos e neofalantes.
Em dezembro de 2009 foi editado este trabalho audiovisual com o nome de Entre Línguas [4], constando de dous DVDs, um DVD com o próprio filme, uma curtametragem de meia hora de duração, e outro DVD de extras intitulado Documentos, com duas horas de entrevistas.
O coletivo formado por Eduardo Maragoto, Vanessa Vilaverde e por mim próprio foi batiçado por J. R. Pichel como “GLU-GLU” (siglas que significam galego língua útil, galego língua universal). O nome era simpático e ainda perdura entre nós, mesmo que no nosso segundo trabalho o trocássemos polo de “Filmes de Bonaval”, de ar mais sério e remetendo para o grupo reintegracionista de base onde o nosso trio se formou, a Assembleia Reintegracionista “Bonaval”. Aquela Assembleia, nascida entre as veneráveis pedras que hoje albergam o Museu do Povo Galego, antes mosteiro de S. Domingos de Bonaval, foi berço da nossa amizade e escola de ativismo cultural.
Entre Línguas converteu-se na primeira parte de uma trilogia audiovisual. Na seguinte curtametragem Em Companhia da Morte[5], deslocar-nos-íamos à freguesia portuguesa de Castro Laboreiro[6] com a desculpa de nos encontrar com o Acompanhamento (a Santa Companha da literatura galega), para mostrarmos ao público galego uma língua cem por cento galega e quase pura, quer dizer, para mostrarmosportugueses que ainda falam à galega. A trilogia concluiria com a gravação d’A Fronteira Será Escrita[7], protagonizada por limiãos dos concelhos de Lóvios e Entrimo, onde ainda se conserva a antiga fonética galego-portuguesa, a que explica a ortografia atual do português.
Devo esclarecer que a nossa vocação não era tanto audiovisual, mas reintegracionista. A nossa pesquisa, é claro, não pretendia apenas questionar uma teoria particular sobre um território concreto, mas a identidade das falas galegas. A causa particular tornava-se assim em causa geral.
Enfim, com Entre Línguas quisemos deixar memória de umas falas peculiares, em grave perigo de extinção e quase desconhecidas, que pola sua convivência secular com o castelhano podem, do nosso ponto de vista, ajudar a esclarecer a tão debatida questione della lingua na Galiza, o debate que desde há décadas mantêm os defensores de que o galego é o português da Galiza (ou o português o galego de Portugal!) e aqueles outros que defendem o galego como idioma separado e diferenciado do português.
Dito por outras palavras, o que pretendemos demonstrar poderia resumir-se de forma simplista na seguinte equação:
Permita-se-nos em consequência (e apesar de não haver mais contínuo linguístico que o que passa por Portugal!) batizarmos estas falas como “os outros galegos”.
Em sucessivos capítulos iremos descrevendo de norte a sul cada uma destas variedades dialetais e a sua possível origem.
(Continuará)
[1] O concelho da Bouça fica no norte da província de Salamanca. Foi historicamente lusófono, mas na atualidade já não conta com falantes espontâneos, quer dizer, pessoas nascidas nele que aprendessem o português como língua materna. Segundo as informações de que dispomos os últimos faleceram na década de 70′ do século XX.
Nascido em Carvalho em 1942. Estudoi Teologia na Universidade Pontifícia de Salamanca, e Liturgia no Instituto Superior de Pastoral, em Madrid; Filosofia na Universidade de Pamplona e Filosofia, Psicologia e Organização do Trabalho na Universidade de Lovaina, Bélgica. Doutor em Filosofia pela Universidade de Santiago. Catedrático de Filosofia reformado.
Hai quen
colecciona selos, moedas ou postais. Satoshi Tajiri, deseñador principal do
primeiro xogo desta saga xunto ao afamado Ken Sugimori, coleccionaba insectos.
De esa pasantía infantil, tan inocente como común, naceu unha das sagas de
videoxogos máis importantes da historia: Pokémon, chamada na súa edición
orixinal Pocket Monsters.
Sete consolas,
millóns e millóns de copias vendidas, máis incluso de dólares, euros iens
desembolsados, a magnánima saga chegaba de maneira oficial á última consola de
Nintendo, a Nintendo Switch, tras o experimento nesta mesma consola coa edición
de Pokemon: Let’s Go. Era á hora dunha nova xeración, de novos inimigos e
criaturas, de longas esperas e filtracións entre tráiler e tráiler que non
facían máis que aumentar a ilusión dos fans… Ata que deixou de crecer.
Se algo
caracteriza a Pokémon: Espada e Escudo dende moito antes da súa saída é a
polémica. Cada declaración de Game Freak ao respecto que non se centraba en
ensinar o produto facía crecer o descontento dunha das comunidades fans máis
grandes do mundo: anulábanse nesta edición as Mega Evolucións, os Movementos Z,
e o maior dos temores: dicíase adeus á Pokédex Nacional, eliminando a
posibilidade de conseguir todos os pokemons que existían nas edicións
anteriores e reformulando isto á captura de ao redor de soamente 400 destes,
sendo a cuarta parte destes novidade e o resto vistos en xogos anteriores.
Pokemon: Espada e Escudo trasládanos esta vez a Galar, unha rexión diferente ás que coñeciamos e que tenta traer consigo novos e diferentes elementos para darlle un aire fresco á saga. No punto máis artístico, esta nova edición trae xunto a ela 80 pokemons novos inspirados na súa maioría na flora e a fauna de Gran Bretaña. A banda sonora, ademais, lévanos alí directamente en mans dunhas composicións perfectamente escollidas.
Tradicionalmente,
e mais na xente millenial, existe unha tradición simplista de criticar aos
pokemons das novas xeracións cun recorrente “os de antes eran mellor”, incluso
criticando que algúns deseños son demasiado simples e esquecéndose que parte da
primeira xeración, aqueles Vermello e Azul que algúns tanto xogaron, tiñan
entre o seu elenco a unha bola vermella e branca á que invertían de orde as
cores para formar a liña evolutiva de Voltorb ou unha pedra con brazos como
Geodude. Esta sinalización non trata de criticar como malos ditos deseños,
senón poñer fincapé en que a simplicidade foi en moitas ocasións unha das
insignias máis claras dos deseños destes.
Si que é certo,
con todo, que os deseños cambiaron moito dende aqueles ata os de hoxe,
achegándonos cada vez máis a formacións que fan máis e máis fincapé en crear
retratos humanos nas criaturas en moitas ocasións, mais afastados desa premisa
falsa, debemos dicir que se algo chama a atención de Pokémon Espada e Escudo é
o cariño e clase coa que as 80 posibles amizades novas foron creadas, sacando
poucos fallos a isto.
Se ben 80 poden
parecer pouco en comparación a outras ocasións, o xogo mesmo encárgase de que
non botemos en falta máis e provoca que as sensacións que recibimos ao xogar a
nosa partida sexa refrescante: poucas veces nos atoparemos no comezo con
pokémons xa coñecidos, sendo a voz cantante a dos novos espécimes e buscando en
todo momento que o transporte a Galar e á Nintendo Switch resulte fresco.
E é que Pokémon:
Espada e Escudo fai máis dun só esforzo xa non só para que resulte fresco,
senón para que moitas das cuestións que trata nos resulten incluso algo co que
soñabamos dende que comezaron a lanzar xogos e co que viamos diferencias cando
viamos o anime de nenos: entre outras, aqueles épicos combates por conseguir as
medallas son agora verdadeiramente épicos, enfrontándonos a un rival en
xigantescos ximnasios onde o público anima dende o comezo do combate aos seus
contendentes ou líderes favoritos, celebrando os combates pokémon coma se cada
un fose parte daquelas Ligas Pokémon que un noviño Ash Ketchump vía por
televisión antes incluso de recibir a Pikachu.
A historia colle
un elemento simple como vehículo condutor, xogando con cuestións locais ao
esgotar xa moitas das ideas en relación aos lendarios, e que se ben pode
resultar baleira cumpre coa función de conducir o xogo e presentar o resto de
elementos novos.
Unha xogabilidade
cada vez máis directa
Naqueles xogos 2D
aos que tantas horas botamos moitos unha das cuestións máis aburridas era ter
que, unha e outra vez, facer as mil e unha para conseguir as chamadas MOs que
nos permitían utilizar movementos como Voo, Forza ou Surf fora do combate.
Ademais, obrigábaseche a levar no equipo a pokémons que moitas veces se
convertían en auténticos escravos que non che servían sequera para combater e
que só levabas no equipo para librarte destas cuestións.
Chegados á
Nintendo 3DS, Game Freak deuse conta de que isto pronto deixaría de ser viable
e introduciu ás Pokemonturas, onde sen ter que levar aos pokémon en cuestión no
teu equipo tiñas a posibilidade de, por exemplo, montarte nun furioso Tauros
que eliminaría as barreiras arquitectónicas que che impedían continuar o teu
camiño.
Espada e Escudo,
xa nunha consola diferente e tendo en conta as novas experiencias, decide ir
máis alá e remata eliminando do mapa as barreiras arquitectónicas e ás
necesidades especiais totalmente: un sistema de taxis che permitirá voar dunha
zona a outra de maneira sinxela e rápida, e a túa bicicleta fusionada co
pokémon Rotom é máis que suficiente para permitir que te poidas mover por todo
o mapa.
A sinxeleza coa
que funciona agora é positiva. Permite ao xogador non ter que preocuparse por
nimiedades e avanzar por un mapa máis grande do que coñecía ata o de agora. Con
todo, o que o substitúe non é tan marabilloso como as melloras comunicativas
parecen: onde antes había pedras que che bloqueaban o camiño, agora o
problemático serán fanáticos dunha das túas rivais bloqueando o camiño lanzando
globos. Ao mesmo tempo, esas serán as únicas barreiras verdadeiramente existentes,
facendo que ás veces exista unha falta de obxectivos demasiado grande e o xogo
semelle demasiado acelerado.
A falta de
minixogos tamén é notable, e é que case non existen. Poderemos botar carreiras en bicicleta, pero aparte diso soamente
poderemos xogar cos nosos pokémon a lanzarlles a pelota e preparar curri con
ingredientes que atopemos tirados.
A pokédex
fusionada co Rotom volve evolucionar, e se ben perde parte do atractivo que
tiña na interacción que existía entre o xogador e a propia consola vivinte no
Sol e Luna, onde podías manter conversacións con ela e o seu estado de ánimo
cambiaba —ademais de ter un mini-xogo propio—, agora é un elemento
verdadeiramente útil que che marca que pokémons atopaches e non capturaches,
mantendo en todo momento unha liña dirixida a axudarche a completar a Pokédex,
algo que moitas veces resulta ata terrorífico.
Un modo competitivo glorificado e/ou arruinado por Game Freak
A novidade que
substitúe nesta edición ás Mega Evolucións e aos Movementos Z son as formas
Dynamax dos Pokémon, que tentan ser unha mestura de ambas: durante tres quendas
e unha vez por combate, os nosos pokemons volveranse xigantes e os seus ataques
serán substituídos por potentes golpes que farán un dano enorme ao noso rival e
que terán a posibilidade de cambiar o estado do terreo de combate, facendo
chover ou que radie o sol. Se ben todos os Pokémon poden tornarse xigantes,
algúns deles contan cunha forma especial chamada Gygantamax, para os cales
existen ataques especiais e efectos diferentes aos estándar.
Funcionan como un
bo substitutivo para as dúas cousas que tenta suplir, simplificando os métodos
e permitindo adaptar estratexias atacantes e defensivas ao redor delas no
combate competitivo.
Cazar pokémons
Dynamax resulta épico, e moitas veces unha tarefa difícil que precisa axuda
doutros xogadores debido a que os NPCs de apoio, xerados polo propio xogo, non
soen ser suficientemente fortes para axudar na captura. Con todo, a interacción
entre xogadores é mínima: existe un menú no que se pode decidir unirse a unha
das chamadas incursións, e nada máis.
Capturar estes
Pokémon sempre parecerá unha boa opción: dependendo das estrelas que aparezan
ao lado do nome destes á hora de capturalos, significará que as capacidades
coas que nace o pokémon (as chamadas IVs, tan necesarias para o competitivo) serán
perfectas en incluso catro ou cinco estatísticas das seis posibles, polo que
serán pokémons case preparados para o competitivo ou bos compañeiros á hora de
realizar tarefas de cría para mellorar estas habilidades.
Ademais disto, as
loitas cos pokémon Dynamax deixarán, captúrelos ou non, diferentes artigos que
serán útiles: cousas que podes vender a un alto prezo, MTs (movementos para os
pokémon) de alta demanda para o combate, ou o máis novidoso e interesante:
caramelos de experiencia de diferentes tamaños que che permitirán aumentar o
nivel do teu pokémon nun abrir e cerrar de ollos.
Game Freak parecía con estas cousas facer un chamamento ás necesidades dunha comunidade que continúa a adorar un dos aspectos máis interesantes dos xogos pokémon: os combates entre estes, que tanto tempo requiren e que necesitan que grandes estratexias cubran as necesidades do equipo. Cos datos citados enriba, a compañía parecía darse conta destas cuestións e facilitaban unha maneira rápida na que preparalo todo. Pero nada máis lonxe da realidade, a compañía continúa afastándose cada vez máis dos fans dos aspectos clásicos do xogo.
Durante os
últimos anos, páxinas webs como Pokémon Showdown e Smogon son visitadas con
asiduidade por milleiros de persoas. A primeira, toda unha clásica xa, permite
tanto en ordenador como en dispositivos móbiles facer combates pokémon de
maneira rápida aos seus visitantes cos equipos que estes desexen. A segunda
citada, chamada a si mesma “Universidade Smogon”, permite aos usuarios acceder
a un enorme listado de estratexias moi detalladas sobre o pokémon que desexen
ter no seu equipo.
Os combates pokémon destas webs, que responden ao fenómeno fan de maneira directa e continúan funcionando por estes, tratan o esquema clásico: seis pokémon enfróntanse a outros seis ata que un dos combatentes quede sen criaturas. Con todo, Game Freak parece ter alerxia a isto, e xa non só é que non haxa a posibilidade de que os xogadores de Espada e Escudo xoguen neste modo de maneira oficial e rankeada, senón que tenta eliminar incluso a posibilidade de que sexa unha opción limitando o tempo de xogo, tentando evitar que alguén o planee e non xogue segundo as normas que eles decidiron crear para facer do xogo algo rápido e carente de emoción.
Un xogo
interesante esgotado por limitacións decididas
En marzo de 2011,
a revista Nintendo Power publicaba unha entrevista na que Junichi Masuda, director
das edicións Rubí e Zafiro, Vermello lume e Verde folla, Diamante e Perla e
Branco e Negro da saga, dicía, entre risas, que non pensaba que cortar o número
de pokémon fose unha opción. Que sentido tería xogar ao Pokémon se non podías
usar os teus favoritos de edicións anteriores?
Como xa comentamos, isto cambiou a partir de Espada e Escudo: o número de Pokémon reduciuse, e o boicot a Game Freak por este motivo avanzou durante semanas anteriores e posteriores ao lanzamento do xogo como ninguén podía ter imaxinado: hashtags sendo tendencia día si e día tamén en negativa á compañía, así como unha comunidade enfadadísima e deixando á edición notas baixísimas en agregados como Metacritic son o pan de cada día.
Por unha banda, a
selección escollida de pokemons antigos e novos permite manter un xogo
equilibrado e novidoso, así como tamén que as partidas a nivel competitivo obriguen
a moitos a cambiar das estratexias que xa tiñan como típicas. Pola outra,
pérdese moita desa esencia que volvía a Pokémon algo máxico, e obriga a
escoller unha lista baixo índices de popularidade ou de corrección de erros
antigos.
Se o paradigma fora a cambiar de verdade, sería algo interesante: obrigaríanos a pensar unha e outra vez a cada xogo as nosas partidas, daríanos unha capacidade interesante para pensar e re-pensar estratexias e ver cousas en moitas desas criaturas que non viramos antes… Pero o certo é que, e sen aventurarnos moito nesta afirmación, Game Freak non tardará en facernos pagar de novo, como fixo sempre, polas cuestións que queriamos corrixidas dende un comezo, polo menos naquelas que contenten a máis público. As preocupacións pola Pokédex e a cantidade de pokemons debería poder ir relaxándonos: pronto aparecerá un UltraEspada e Ultraescudo que tentará darnos o que buscamos.
Game Freak aproveita moitos elementos cargados de emoción para ofrecer en Pokémon: Espada e Escudo unha experiencia fresca, ás veces novidosa, que aínda así deixa a moitos fans fóra dunha saga que leva tantos anos entre nós. Hai moito material marabilloso do que desfrutar, si, pero tamén moitos puntos mellorables nun dos xogos con máis experiencias aí fora.
Desenvolvedora: Game Freak Distribuidora: Nintendo Ano: 2019 Director: Shigeru Ohmori Arte: James Turner, Suguru Nakatsui Compositor: Minako Adachi, Go Ichinose
"Welcome to my Space Age Bachelor Pad. I'm so glad you could make it. My, you look ravishing tonight. I love the boots. And you? You look so dashing. The cut of that suit is impeccable. Now please, come in and make yourselves at home. You'll find the bar over there. There's a lovely view of Venus tonight. And I'm sure your ears will take you to where the band is playing. " (YouTube playlist) Thus opens Merry Xmas From The Space-Age Bachelor Pad (Discogs), a compilation of music by Juan García Esquivel, and featuring his final recording. New to Esquivel!? Saunter on in! Boing boing!
His Latin-infused cocktail-lounge pop had its heyday, and then it ended. But in the 1990s, the exotica craze came back, and with it, Esquivel's renown. In 1996, he was even interviewed by Mtv (text only), with the release of his new Xmas compilation, which was mostly repackaging The Merriest Of Christmas Pops (official audio playlist), itself a compilation of tracks by Esquivel and Ray Martin (Discogs), each with their own orchestras and singers.
A catedral ourensá supón para a cidade unhas das maiores atraccións turísticas pola súa cabeceira, a súa fachada occidental e, sobre todo, polo seu rico Pórtico do Paraíso. Sen embargo, as súas paredes gardan segredos, vivencias e lendas que fan deste templo un lugar marabilloso. Unha destas lendas é sobre a súa orixe como catedral da cidade, historia vencellada ao famoso santo San Martín de Tours.
No século VI, Galicia atopábase dominada polos suevos, un pobo practicante da tradición arriana que estaba dirixido por Carriarico. San Martín de Tours, bispo no século IV d.C. procedente de Panonia, é famoso polos numerosos milagres que levou a cabo, ademais da evanxelización e a súa loita contra os costumes pagáns. Esta fama prolongouse pola cristiandade nos séculos e no territorio, chegando aos ouvidos de Carriarico, quen tiña un fillo moi enfermo.
San Martín de Tours
Ante o coñecemento deste santo tan milagreiro, o rei suevo promete que se o seu fillo curaba grazas á intercesión de San Martín, converteríase ao catolicismo. Por tanto, Carriarico envía embaixadores con “ricas ofrendas” a visitar o sepulcro do santo co fin de implorar saúde para o seu fillo e tamén a recoller algunha reliquia que puidese salvalo, tal como dicía a tradición[1]. A misión fracasa, xa que os encargados de recoller as reliquias volven coas mans baleiras; sen embargo, a fe do rei suevo non se debilita, mais manda construír unha catedral nova[2] na cidade da súa residencia, que segundo Manuel Sánchez Arteaga “(…) a cidade na que aconteceron e na que Carriarico á sazón residía, cidade que Gregorio (de Tours) non nombra, foi a antiga Auria”[3].
Ao mesmo tempo que se comeza a construción da catedral, os embaixadores volven en busca de reliquias a Tours, lugar onde se atopa o sepulcro do santo, esta vez con éxito. Segundo palabras de Sánchez Arteaga, estes embaixadores volven a un porto de Galicia, onde atopan a San Martín de Dumio, un sacerdote de gran instrución e natural de Panonia. Esta personaxe visitara os “Sagrados Lugares” da Palestina[4], motivo polo que se pensa que a misión tivo éxito. San Martín Dumiense únese aos embaixadores camiño á cidade de residencia de Carriarico, rei dos suevos, quen aparece á metade do camiño acompañado do seu fillo completamente curado. Tras este milagre, e totalmente agradecido, o rei suevo Carriarico converteuse do arrianismo ao catolicismo. Seguidamente, vendo a conversión do seu rei, todo o pobo suevo converteuse do mesmo xeito ao catolicismo, sendo este un acontecemento histórico para a Península.
Sarcófago de San Martín de Dumio.
As novas reliquias conseguidas de San Martín de Tours foron levadas á nova catedral de Ourense, sendo esta consagrada a este santo, ata a actualidade, onde se conservan no presbiterio da Capela Maior. Por tanto, a catedral de Ourense, a chamada Catedral de San Martiño, está dedicada a este santo francés por este acontecemento, célebre en numerosas cidades de Europa, sobre todo no Camiño de Santiago. Sen embargo, vemos que na historia tamén intercede San Martín de Dumio, un santo moi importante para a cristiandade e para a Península, xa que está moi vencellado aos inicios da Igrexa nesta parte do mundo, sobre todo pola súa evanxelización dos suevos. Por tanto, a catedral leva o nome de dous santos que evanxelizaron un pobo arriano a través da curación do fillo dun rei suevo no século VI.
Esta historia poderiámola considerar fantástica, sen embargo, unha fonte primaria como é o libro “De Miraculis Sancti Martini” escrito por Gregorio de Tours no século VI d.C. da testimonio deste suceso, atribuíndo ao rei suevo Carriarico a fundación cara ao ano 550 dunha segunda catedral auriense, baixo a advocación de san Martín[5]. Estas datas sitúan unha diocese auriense moi lonxeva, xa que non só estamos a falar dunha catedral sueva dedicada a un santo francés no século VI, senón que esta sería unha segunda catedral na cidade de Ourense. Por outra parte, e en canto ás orixes da diocese auriense, Eduardo Carrero Santamaría sitúaa no momento da predicación de Santiago o apóstolo nas terras noroccidentais; e Enrique Flórez, autor da famosa “España Sagrada”, tamén aporta información sobre as orixes desta diocese.
Citas
[1] Manuel Sánchez Arteaga, Apuntes histórico-artísticos de la Catedral de Orense (Ourense: Diputación, 2005), 57.
[2] Existe unha teoría que fala dunha catedral anterior á de San Martiño de Tours, que sería a que hoxe é coñecida como Santa María Nai.
[3] Manuel Sánchez Arteaga, Apuntes histórico-artísticos de la Catedral de Orense (Ourense: Diputación, 2005), 58.
[4] Manuel Sánchez Arteaga, Apuntes histórico-artísticos de la Catedral de Orense (Ourense: Diputación, 2005), 58-59.
[5] Esta información está recollida en: Eduardo Carrero Santamaría, Las catedrales de Galicia durante la Edad Media. Claustros y entorno urbano (A Coruña: Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza, 2005), 183-184.
Bibliografía
-Carrero Santamaría, Eduardo. Las catedrales de Galicia durante la Edad Media. Claustros y entorno urbano. A Coruña: Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza, 2005.
-Sánchez Arteaga, Manuel. Apuntes histórico-artísticos de la Catedral de Orense. Ourense: Deputación de Ourense, 2005.
Since the financial crisis, voting in the United Kingdom (2018) (2019) and the United States (2018) has become increasingly polarized by age. Why is the divide so large? And is the divide actually important? Maybe. Maybenot.
There was a lot of great television in the 2010s — but it was harder than ever to have a conversation about it. | Amanda Northrop/Vox
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Hasta hace unos meses, las obras de sensei Ito publicadas en nuestro país pertenecían al género de terror, del que es todo un maestro y una referencia ineludible, pero con este cómic se abren nuevos frentes y se demuestra la versatilidad de un magnífico autor. Indigno de ser humano es una de las obras más importantes de la literatura nipona, escrita por DAZAI Osamu, pseudónimo de TSUJIMA Shûji, quien se erigió en la voz literaria de un país derrotado y destruido tras la II Guerra Mundial, gracias a una obra de marcados tintes autobiográficos donde hace públicos los momentos más relevantes de su vida, con un espíritu rebelde e inconformista con los valores tradicionales de la sociedad japonesa. Esta novela ha sido adaptada al cine, el anime y el manga en diversas ocasiones.
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