Elsbeth and the tech bro’s panic room [Media Notes 190]

I’ve been watching episodes of Elsbeth off and on. It’s a spin-off of The Good Wife and The Good Fight. Elsbeth Tascioni is an eccentric attorney assigned to the New York Police Department on a consent decree. She functions as a sleuth in each episode. I’m interested in episode 36, “Bunker Down” in season 3 (airing on Nov. 13, 2025). Here’s how Wikipedia characterizes the episode:

Paranoid fintech [financial technology] billionaire Craig Hollis traps his crisis manager Anders Whitman in Craig's state-of-the art panic room, erratically believing that Anders will report his "indiscretions" to his company's board of directors.

Hollis is presented as particularly eccentric and willful in his ways. I couldn’t help but think of this as a deliberately nasty satire of an archetypal billionaire. Perhaps it was Hollis's glee in all the gadgetry incorporated into the room.

High tech billionaires are not particularly rare in movies and TV. But this one somehow struck me as a particularly nasty depiction. Not twirling mustaches nasty – he was clear shaven – but nasty. I’m wondering if we’re in for a rash of such characters.

Once again, the appeal of The Rockford Files [Media Notes 164 B]

Once again I find myself working my way through The Rockford Files thinking, “Gee, this is my intellectual comfort food, I should write a post about that.” And once again I discover, “Hey! I’ve already written that post.” And so I have.

That means that, to justify this post, I’ve got to cover new material, so I will. Here’s what I said in that previous post:

Garner is a handsome middle-aged man, six feet and perhaps an inch or two tall. He plays an easy going character, James Rockford, who is masculine without being macho. He can handle himself in a fight, which he frequently has to do, but he’s not a martial artist or a superhero. He’s competent, but vulnerable and takes his lumps. He likes sports, going to games, going fishing, often with his dad. He’s single, but is attractive to women, and kind. He’s had affairs in the past, and has one or three in the course of the show, he may even have been close to marriage.

Much of the appeal stems from the fact that he’s an interstitial character, if you will. He falls between the keys, lives in the cracks. While he makes a living, just barely, he’s not chained to a 9-to-5 job. He’s not been broken to harness.

I also noted that he doesn’t live within the confines of work mode. He’s not a slave to Homo economicus.

Moreover, he’s not married. His police buddy Lt. Becker is married, but Rockford himself is not. We do see Becker’s wife in a handful of episodes, but that’s all. She’s there as an adjunct to Rockford’s relationship with her husband. That’s all she could be in the show. So it doesn’t make sense to have her in too many episodes. She’d be in the way.

But why couldn’t Rockford himself be married? We know that he’s thought about, maybe even came close in the past. But married himself? How would that change the dynamic that makes the show work?

What if he’d married his attorney, Beth Davenport? It seems that they’d dated in the past and she pretty much confessed that she’d thought of him as a husband. Well, if they’d have gotten married, what kind of life would they have lived? I can’t imagine her living with him in that trailer; that’s not at all her style, not at all. Nor can I imagine him living her life style, with the elegant apartment. What of his PI business? Would he have taken it upscale to suit her clientele as a lawyer? I don’t think so.

Now, can I translate that paragraph into a statement about audience preference? That is, whoever finds Rockford appealing, male or female, finds him appealing as he is, an interstitial bachelor who likes women, dates them occasionally, and has longer term affairs, but that’s it. Whatever the basis of the show’s appeal, it’s incompatible with marriage as we currently conceive it.

Now, David Chase wrote and produced many episodes of The Rockford Files. But he’s best known as creator of and writer for The Sopranos. Marriage is central to that show, both Tony’s relationship to his wife and his two children, in addition to his many responsibilities as a gangster. What I’m suggesting is that, in a way, Tony Soprano is a Jim Rockford who’s married. Obviously, they’re very different types of people. Tony Soprano is overbearing, aggressive, and violent in a way that Jim Rockford his not. And if Jim Rockford is interstitial, then Tony Soprano is interstitial on steroids. And where Jim had is lawyer, Beth, Tony Soprano had his psychiatrist, Jennifer Malfi. That’s a very different kind of relationship – and I note that Rockford’s most substantial affair within the show was with a (blind) psychiatrist.

What interests me is that neither Rockford nor Soprano are “broken” to work mode. They make their living in (something like) play mode. I’m thinking something like: If you want to center a program around a Rockford-like character AND have him be married, you have to make him a gangster to do it. That is to say, our conventions about men, women, and marriage are such, that that’s what you have to do.

Do I believe that? Not quite. After all, I just made it up. It’s worth exploring with shows like Breaking Bad and Ozark, both about married couples (forced) to live on the wild side. The Hunting Wives? Sex/Life? Hmmmm....

Douthat on Nolan's Odyssey: Banal, Bland, and Benighted [Media Notes 189 B]

Ross Douthat, It Is Banal, Bland, Thin and Didactic. We Can’t Stop Talking About It. NYTimes, Aug. 1, 2023.

Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is the blockbuster that launched a million takes. The interpretations crowd my social media feed like Agamemnon’s assembled ships at Aulis. They keen in my ears like the Sirens’ seductive voices. They … OK, look, I’m just saying people have a lot of opinions about the biggest movie of the year.

And for good reason, because Nolan’s film is perfectly calibrated for the contemporary culture war. [...]

Then, having plucked the ripest fruit, Nolan proceeded to serve it in the blandest form. Gone is the sex and sensuality, the warring deities, the hero’s outsize ego and charisma. In their place is a story that’s very American, with tropes familiar from war movies and westerns, dialogue that belongs in a contemporary Y.A. novel and a moralism that’s at once extremely didactic and extremely general. “Civilization collapses when you violate Zeus’ law” is the teaching of Nolan’s story, and while you could imagine that Zeus’ law is some arcane instruction requiring the castration of a black heifer on the highest peak on the darkest night, it turns out to just be the golden rule applied to houseguests, dogs and Trojans.

This is a critique, but it’s also a key to the film’s cultural cachet. If you just want to like “The Odyssey,” if you just want to have a good time at the movie, the bland version still has all the good stuff — the Trojan horse! the Cyclops! a bloody homecoming! — stitched together by a director with a gift for propulsion and spectacle. If you have a great enough story, you can reduce the spice level and still satisfy millions of customers with the meal.

Then if you want to claim “The Odyssey” for your own worldview, to insist that the dominant movie of the summer is speaking directly to your concerns, the banal didacticism of Nolan’s script is unusually amenable to personalized interpretations.

At which point Douthat serves up a few. And then goes on to serve up sample critiques. But he didn't mention Damon's six-pack abs.

Matt Damon’s six-pack in The Odyssey [Media Notes 189 A]

I went to see Nolan’s The Odyssey last Sunday and was not thrilled. It was too long and I kept getting distracted by the damn reclining seat I was stuck in. I couldn’t find a position where I was comfortable for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a stretch. I wish my local multiplex hadn’t installed those things. I much prefer the old-style well-cushioned upright seats with a little slack in them.

Anyhow, back to the movie. The Circe segment was interesting and gross. But what I really remember is Matt Damon’s six-pack. For a 55 year old man that’s impressive. So I asked Gemini about it via Google Search. I've appended the response below.

The film has received lots of positive reviews.

* * * * *

I’m curious about reviews for The Odyssey. Have any of them mentioned Matt Damon’s six-pack abs?

Yes, reviews and fashion features for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey specifically highlight Matt Damon’s six-pack abs and lean, battle-hardened physique. Costar Robert Pattinson even joked that Damon's definition was visible right through a loose t-shirt on their first day of filming. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Physique Highlights & Reactions

• Costar comments: Robert Pattinson expressed surprise that Damon’s abs showed through standard wardrobe.
• Critical coverage: Outlets like Vogue noted that the film's sleeveless costume design put Damon's six-pack and toned shoulders on full display.
• The transformation: Trainer Gabe Stump helped Damon cut down to 167 pounds—his high school weight—to portray a lean, weathered King Odysseus. [6, 7]

If you'd like, I can share:

• The gluten-free diet changes Damon credited for the weight drop
• Details on Christopher Nolan's practical filming approach for the epic

[1] https://www.facebook.com/EntertainmentTonight/videos/robert-pattinson-reacts-to-matt-damons-abs-in-the-odyssey/2059755168263292/
[2] https://www.facebook.com/groups/1144683990145330/posts/1695342491746141/
[3] https://www.vogue.com/article/matt-damon-workout-plan-the-odyssey
[4] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/L51EPYqZDHI
[5] https://vogueadria.com/matt-damon-workout/
[6] https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbOXKeIFY2N/
[7] https://www.gq.com/story/matt-damon-the-odyssey-workout-plan

Tell me about that diet.

Matt Damon dropped to 167 pounds—his high school weight—by completely eliminating gluten, alcohol, and processed sugars from his diet. Under the guidance of his doctor and trainer Gabe Stump, the 55-year-old actor called the shift a total "lifestyle change" to achieve the lean, chiseled look required for The Odyssey. [1, 2, 3]

Core Elements of Damon's Diet

• Strict Gluten Elimination: He cut out staples like bread, pasta, pizza, and beer after uncovering hidden food sensitivities with his doctor. [1, 4]
• High-Protein Focus: He replaced refined carbohydrates with whole foods and clean proteins, often opting for steak and green vegetables at dinner. [5, 6]
• Caloric Control: His trainer emphasized that fat loss is driven by "calories in," meaning cutting out calorie-dense processed foods was essential to revealing his muscle definition. [3]
• The Results: Damon shed roughly 20 to 30 pounds from his usual 185–200 pound baseline, reporting that the diet also cured his chronic brain fog and spiked his everyday energy levels. [2, 7]

If you are interested, I can break down the 45-minute workout routine his trainer used to build his upper body, or discuss how his co-star Tom Holland handled his own diet while filming in Italy. [6, 8]

Little Miss Sunshine [Media Notes 188]

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) is a little strange and quite wonderful. Here’s how Wikipedia opens its plot summary:

Sheryl Hoover is a stressed mother of two living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her husband Richard is an aspiring motivational speaker and life coach. Dwayne, Sheryl's Nietzsche-admiring teenage son from her previous marriage, has taken a vow of silence until he accomplishes his dream of becoming a fighter pilot. Sheryl's older brother Frank Ginsburg, a gay scholar of Proust, is living with the family after attempting suicide. Richard's foul-mouthed father Edwin is also living with the family after being evicted from a retirement home for snorting heroin. Olive, Richard and Sheryl's 7-year-old daughter, is an aspiring beauty queen coached by Edwin.

Olive learns she has qualified for the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant being held in Redondo Beach, California, in two days. Richard, Sheryl, and Edwin want to support her, and Frank and Dwayne cannot be left alone, so the whole family attends. Due to financial constraints, they go on an 800-mile (1,300 km) road trip in their yellow Volkswagen van.

We know that much by, I don’t know, let’s say 10 or 15 minutes in (out of 102 minutes in total). At this point we pretty much know what’s going to happen, if only in broad outline. There will be a happy ending, because that’s how these films go; you knew this much when you bought your ticket, or picked in Netflix, as I did. You also that the trip is going to be, shall we say, stressful, with revelations and perhaps a (big) downer. It’s the details of the stress, revelations, and downer that matter.

As for the ending, obviously that’s going to be Olive’s performance at the “Little Miss Sunshine” pageant. Olive is cheerful and kind; she’s also a bit overweight, chubby but not fat. Somehow she made it to the finals despite being chubby but not fat. We know, because it is in the nature of beauty pageants for little girls, that chubby but not fat does not win the prize, no matter what kind of talent the contestant exhibits.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about that:

The hitherto-unseen dance routine Edwin had taught Olive is revealed to be a striptease performed to the Rocasound remix of Rick James’ “Super Freak”. Olive is oblivious to the subtext of the routine, but it horrifies and angers most of the audience, and the pageant organizer demands she be removed from the stage.

Needless to say, the audience is, shall we say, quite taken aback.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out how the film turns that sow’s ear into a silk purse. Better yet, watch the film.

Don’t worry, you can listen to the music without having the film spoiled. The visual you see now is the only visual there is for the clip.

The Boys [Media Notes 187]

David Colman, The Emmy Awards Are Afraid of This Vulgar, Gory, Brilliant Show, NYTimes, July 19, 2026.

Last week, a raft of intelligent, watchable, enjoyable shows were nominated for the Emmy Award for outstanding drama series, the TV version of the best picture Oscar. Each of these prestige TV shows made tart references to our current moment. “The Pitt” dealt with ICE in the E.R. “Slow Horses” and “The Diplomat” dramatized the dangers of cynical political expedience. “The Gilded Age” and “Paradise” produced two very different takes on oligarch-itecture. “Your Friends & Neighbors” wallowed in larcenous suburban finance dads in midlife crisis, while “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” jousted with how to transcend one’s “low birth.” The only show to truly depart from dramatic realism was “Pluribus,” a sci-fi show about a space virus that made virtually all humans highly agreeable zombies, making you wonder if this is what life will be like living in a world ruled by A.I. agents.

But in the end, none of them actually tried to capture the grand farce of a moment we’re in. They didn’t even come close. Each of them is too polite, too nuanced, too, in the end, moderate — centrist, even.

And then there’s The Boys, which captured our current moment, where it’s “as if we’re living in a burn-it-all-down age of greed, mayhem and corruption.”

There was one show, however, that hit this head-on — and it’s not “Industry,” HBO’s finance-and-cocaine drama that was also snubbed by the Emmys this year. It’s Amazon Prime’s “The Boys.” The superhero spoof, which ended its five-season run this May, received not a single Emmy nomination in a major award category. Despite the fact that it dared to land savage, serious and entertaining punches about everything warped in American culture — corporate greed, celebrity worship, moral hypocrisy and how they all fit together. [...]

For those unfamiliar, “The Boys” is set in an alt-present-day United States, where superheroes (“supes”) are real and abundant. But instead of renegades valiantly saving the world from doomsday plots, they’re more like substance-abusing superinfluencers: entitled, narcissistic pursuers of fame whose high-profile “saves” are frequently stage-managed photo ops. They often offhandedly end up killing bystanders. The supes — especially the elite supe group known as “The Seven,” a parody of DC’s Justice League — are controlled, weaponized and monetized by the company that came up with the chemical to create them: Vought International, a corporate octopus whose business interests range from Disney-style entertainment to pharmaceuticals to military contracts.

The gullible public laps up all the supe mythology — especially that of Homelander, the all-American, charismatic leader of the Seven whose authoritarian megalomania drives him to take over the Oval Office, having naysayers locked up in detention camps (or just laser-visioning them in half) along the way.

For what it’s worth, I was hooked from the first season in 2019, while the Trumposaurus was finishing off his first term.

This vulgar world of corporate-branded superheroes isn’t just an ironic conceit; it’s a brilliant, subversive lampooning of our politically divided, social-media-addicted, celebrity-hypnotized society — and, in the words of the “Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke, of the “powerful and selfish people using social media to intentionally tear people apart for their own selfish interests.”

It may not be subtle. But neither is the era we live in. The Shakespearean scramble of “House of Cards” or “Succession” (both repeat Emmy winners for outstanding drama series) seems quaint by comparison with what we get on newsfeeds every day. [...]

You might wonder why a show that focuses on the superheroes isn’t called “The Supes,” but that’s really the point here. The characters putting the plot into action aren’t the supes, but “the boys,” the four men, and eventually two women, who commit themselves to destroying the company and the supes who are making their world a living hell. Even if some have superpowers, they don’t know what they’re doing. They take insane chances. They fail over and over and keep getting outsmarted by Vought — until they don’t. The show’s real heroes, working outside the official system, pursue their impossible task no matter how the deck is stacked against them. And that is how they win.

There’s more at the link.

Elle (from the world of Legally Blonde) [Media Notes 186]

I’ve just been through the first season of Elle (on Amazon), which is a prequel to Legally Blonde, from 2001. And so I decided to re-watch Legally Blonde, which I had enjoyed when it first came out in theatres and then some years later when it was streamed. I decided that I preferred the Legally Blondes over The Devil Wears Prada 2.

Now, I’m not sure I’m in the target demographic for either films. Maybe I’m at some edge of the demographic for Prada, but nowhere near the demographic for Blonde. But it seems to me that Blonde serves its demographic better than Prada serves its. Prada is about the imperious editor of Runway magazine, modeled after Vogue. I’m sure I’ve looked at Vogue once or three times, but that’s it. However I’ve long looked at the fashion coverage in the Sunday New York Times and I generally look at photos of the “looks” on display at important award shows and, of course, the Met Gala. So I’ve got some interest. I don’t have any interest in Cosmopolitan, but I’ve certainly leafed through issues. I have a vague sense that my sister may have read it decades ago. While Blonde is not about Cosmo, it does treat Cosmo as the bible, mentions it frequently, and splashes its cover on the screen often enough. Elle Woods swears by it.

Well, I suspect that the readers of Cosmo are more honestly served by Elle Woods in her various incarnations than the readers of Vogue are served by Prada 2, I don’t remember the original well enough to judge. But I do remember that speech about cerulean:

I can believe the substance of the speech. But what does that have to do with the line I remember from Prada 2: “You don't have what it takes. I'm sorry, but you're not a visionary. You're a vendor.”

I know Miranda thinks of herself as a visionary. A visionary of what? Of design? That’s the designers, no? Or is it her eye for design that makes her a visionary, an eye that crafts the editorial style of her magazine? Does that make her a style visionary or merely an astute vendor? I’m sure that Prada 2 doesn’t make the distinction, or tries and fails, but perhaps the original Prada did, I just don’t remember it well enough.

But there is no such pretension about Legally Blonde. Yes, there’s some snobbery and some cliquishness, but the movie wasn’t really about them nor is the prequel series. They prove to be superficial and harmless. The movie presents us with what we initially take to be a dumb blonde prom queen who swears by Cosmo and shows us that she is, or can easily be, a smart, resourceful, and tenacious young woman. In the movie she follows her handsome, shallow, and transactional boyfriend to Harvard Law School. She proves to have shrewd judgment about people and a good legal mind, dumping idiot boyfriend in the process. Elle gives us the same characteristics stretched over an eight episode series. She figures out who’s scamming the high school budget and develops fast friendships with grunge Seatle teens whose sensibility seems (and is) at odds with her perky pink California glam. She grows.

What we’ve got is a light romp with Homo Ludens in Blonde vs. a highly polished trek with Homo economicus in Prada.

A Face in the Crowd [Media Notes 185]

Bret Primack, aka Jazz Video Guy, has a post about A Face in the Crowd (1957), chilling movie starring Andy Griffith. Here's how it opens:

There’s a drunk in an Arkansas jail who’s about to become the most powerful man in America.

He can’t help himself. He’s funny, loose, dangerous, and magnetic in ways that make you lean toward him even when something in the back of your brain is sending signals you’re choosing to ignore. His name is Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, and Elia Kazan put him on screen in 1957, which means the film has now spent nearly seven decades being more relevant than it was the year before.

If you haven’t seen it, stop reading, scroll down watch it first. If you have seen it, you already know what I’m about to say.

Kazan made A Face in the Crowd with screenwriter Budd Schulberg, fresh off On the Waterfront. Both men were carrying complicated personal freight — they’d each named names before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Schulberg in 1951, Kazan in 1952. Both were condemned by significant portions of the Hollywood left, and that condemnation followed them. [...] What they actually made was something darker and more personal than a political warning — a film built by two men who understood betrayal from the inside. [...]

Lonesome Rhodes is not just a villain. He’s a product. His raw, folksy charm makes him an instant hit on local radio, and the machine takes it from there — television, sponsors, politicians, handlers. As his power grows, so does his contempt for the audience that made him. He holds his followers in private disdain while publicly celebrating them as the heartland soul of America. The film understands something that most political films miss entirely: authenticity itself can be manufactured, and the more real someone seems, the more carefully that realness has been constructed.

When it was released in 1957, critics called it unrealistic. Too paranoid. Too on the nose. That’s worth sitting with for a moment — the scenario that seemed like exaggeration then is now just Tuesday.

Andy Griffith’s performance is the reason the film works at the visceral level. He had almost no film experience before Kazan cast him, and that rawness is inseparable from what he does on screen. There’s no technique getting in the way. [...]

Kazan reportedly called it one of the finest performances he ever directed. Given that Kazan worked with Brando at his peak, that’s not a throwaway remark.

Contemporary resonance:

The comparison to Donald Trump gets made every time this film is discussed, and it holds up to a point. The billionaire performing as populist, the television personality who understands the medium as a tool of dominance rather than information, the contempt that surfaces in unguarded moments, the persona of success constructed over a private reality of failures. Rhodes and Trump share the same operating mechanism.

But the comparison reveals where the film’s imagination ran out. Rhodes is ultimately destroyed. The hot mic moment — caught mocking the very people who worship him — ends him. Schulberg and Kazan still believed in a rational audience that could be shocked back to its senses. That faith looks genuinely touching now, the faith of men who lived before the complete dissolution of shared reality.

Trump’s supporters processed every exposure, every revelation, every unguarded moment, and stayed loyal. The mask slipped repeatedly and it didn’t matter, because the audience had decided the mask was the point. What Kazan and Schulberg couldn’t anticipate was social media removing the last gatekeepers, so that the Lonesome Rhodes dynamic now operates at a scale and speed that makes 1957 network television look like a church bulletin.

The film identified a structural vulnerability in media democracy — that charisma plus television produces a kind of power that bypasses argument and rational persuasion entirely. What it couldn’t imagine was an audience that already knew, and didn’t care.

There's much more at the link. The full article is worth reading. And if you've not seen the film, do so.

Disclosure Day [Media Notes 184]

Meh. I made it through. I wasn’t hard, except for the seat. I couple of years ago my local theater converted to those recliner seats. I wish they hadn’t. I can never find a position I find really comfortable, so I keep it moving around. I liked to old seats. They had plush cushions and just enough “give.”

Anyhow, back to the movie, Disclosure Day. By the time I decided to see it I knew it was about aliens. Not my favorite. But Spielberg’s done it before. I really liked Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra Terrestrial; War of the Worlds was OK. So I went. Spielberg.

It was a chase movie, with aliens swirling around in there. That much was obvious. But just who these peoples were and what these agencies were, not at all obvious. They’re just there, doing stuff. But then the two central characters, Daniel Kellner (Josh O. Conner) and Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) didn’t really know who they were or what had happened to them, much less why. And then there’s the Wardex Corporation, some kind of private security firm with deep government ties, they’re pulling all the strings. Except for the ones pulled by the extraterrestrials.

Spoilers ahead.

Anyhow, the world seems to be on the brink of another world war and the good guys and bad guys are messing with Kellner and Fairchild about the aliens while they’re running around wondering “Why me?” And fast cars and chases. There’s lots of talk about empathy and hand-held stick devices that control others and then near the end there’s a flashback when we see Kellner and Fairchild stretched out on tables. Apparently they’ve been abducted and these wand things are ringed around their heads and doing something glowy.

At that point I flashed on Forbidden Planet, from the previous century. There Dr. Morbius uses the Krell mind device to juice up his intelligence with, shall we say, mixed results. Here the results seem better. It’s kind of the inverse. Seventy years, from 1956 to 2026. At the same time I felt echoes of the current moment, where, instead of aliens, we have AIs.

And then there’s the alien, when we finally see it. We’d seen aliens in video tapes. They seem to be the standard “Greys,” short, spindly, with big heads and big eyes. This poor guy was very tall, very spindly, and with a super-large head. It’s a wonder it could stand up at all. But it did, getting up from a wheel chair – where’d they keep it, how, and why? It put one hand on Kellner and the other on Fairchild, and then the scene changes abruptly – but we’re very near the end. I kept thinking, “So very frail and fragile and somehow it caused all this fuss. Does not compute.”

All these loose ends. The whole thing, just hanging in midair, pushed and dragged along by a bunch of breathless chase sequences to keep you from thinking too much. It does not compute. 

* * * * * 

Addendum (6.27.26): My old blogging buddy (from The Valve), Adam Roberts, has a superb and rather long review of the film: ‘Disclosure Day’ (dir. Steven Spielberg, 2026). 

* * * * * 

Splash! [Media Notes 183]

I’m pretty sure that I saw Splash when it appeared in theaters in 1984 but I certainly didn’t imagine that it would popularize “Madison” as a name for girls. The Wikipedia entry notes:

According to the Social Security Administration, the name Madison was the 216th most popular name in the United States for girls in 1990, the 29th most popular name for girls in 1995, and the third most popular name for girls in 2000. In 2005, the name cracked the top 50 most popular girls' names in the United Kingdom, and articles in British newspapers credit the film for the popularization.

In the movie “Madison” is the name taken by a mermaid, played by Daryh Hannah, when she emerges on land to attach herself to a forlorn Allen Bauer, played by Tom Hanks.

The first 10, 15, 20 minutes or so of the movie are about how this situation comes about, but let’s just take that as a given. This is a story about how a human male and a female mermaid meet, fall in love, and, why not? I’ll give the ending away. They swim away to, presumably, live happily ever after, under the sea.

I’m interested in the elaborate contraption that’s constructed around them. As far as I can tell that contraption exists to conceal an interpersonal problem that’s been kicking around for a long time, one identified by Sigmund Freud (e.g. ”A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men,” 1910), played out on stage by William Shakespeare [1], and that’s been kicking around in stories and poems since forever: Men have trouble dealing with the fact that women can be both sexual and loving, passionate and beloved. Splash deals with this by presenting us with a creature that’s both human and not human (i.e. a mermaid).

Young Allen Bauer is despondent because his girlfriend’s just moved out without giving any him any inkling that she was going to do that. He just wants a woman he can love and marry and be happy with. That’s all he wants. True Romance.

And then this woman shows up. We know she’s really mermaid, but he doesn’t. He picks her up at the police station – I know, you want to know how that came about, but it doesn’t really matter, it’s just staging – takes her home and she goes to bed with him. Simple as that. No teasing or pleading, nothing resembling courtship. Just what happened in there, we get to imagine whatever we wish. But we do see her waken in the middle of the night, fill a bathtub with salt water and then luxuriate in it, tail and all. Allen then wakes up a follows her to that bathroom. He knocks on the door, wants to see her, but she tells him to keep out. He breaks down the door and she has barely enough time to transition back to human form.

I mean, she’s really a mermaid! And she’s only got six more days, until the full moon, and then she’s got to return home. But she doesn’t tell Allen where home is or what she is. But she does take the name “Madison.”

Then things get complicated, and painful – in several senses. I was all but squirming as I watched how Madison was treated in the laboratory. Allen isn’t the only man involved. There’s a bizarre scientist, Walter Kornbluth, who gets wind of all this and realizes, “Ah hah! I’ll bet she’s really a mermaid.” He’s seen her before. Don’t ask. He manages to douse her with water, at a dinner for the President of the USA (don’t ask), and she’s taken by Kornbluth’s rival scientist, locked up in a lab, and subjected to tests. When Kornbluth learns that she’s going to be dissected the next day, he decides to spring her and return her to Allen.

By this time Allen knows that he’s slept with and is in love with a mermaid. Now what? Well, she’s got to return to the sea or she’ll die. If he’s willing to leave with her and never return to dry land, that can happen. He decides, no. She dives into the water and starts swimming away. He changes his mind, jumps in after her, and they swim away as the credits role.

And this point you may be thinking: “That’s crazy.” I know, and it’s even crazier. Read the Wikipedia plot summary (linked above), you’ll see. My point is that this elaborate contraption is a way of dealing with that problem that Freud named and analyzed, that men have this split image of women as both mothers and whores (if you will). Splash transforms that duality into humans and mermaids and erects an elaborate fantastical contraption to deal with it.

Given that you accept all that, I’ve got one problem with the movie. Allen should have stayed on the pier and let the mermaid go. That wouldn’t have given the audience the feel-good ending for which a movie like this is concocted, but it would have been a minimal way of acknowledging the preposterous nature of it all.

* * * * *

ADDENDUM [a day later]: Some things were bugging me, so I watched it again.

In the prelude, Allen, his parents, and his brother are on a boat tour off Cape Cod. His older brother Freddie is dropping coins on the deck near women so he can look up their skirts as he retrieves the coins. Allen is entranced by the water. He jumps in. Pandemonium on the boat.

He meets a young girl. They hold hands. He’s retrieved. She’s sad to see him leave. We see that she’s a mermaid.

One the one hand it adds little or nothing to the plot. But it establishes that Allen has established some kind of link with this mermaid during his preadolescent childhood and the contrast between his behavior and that of his older brother reinforces our sense of the innocence of that link. Note that this kind of childhood link occurs in a number of anime series, though I can’t recall any title names off the top of my head.

Then the movie abruptly shifts ahead to the present, where Allen is being hassled by a customer at the family’s produce business. Freddie comes wheeling in in his sports care and is ecstatic because Penthouse magazine printed his letter.

This and that, Allen’s drunk over his girlfriend leaving, so decides to go to Cape Cod, where he met that girl/mermaid when he was eight, Now we see the crazy scientist...this that that other & Allen’s bonked in the head by a rogue motorboat, he sinks...and then next we see him he’s lying on the beach. An adult mermaid is watching him. He speaks to her, she’s naked. She walks up to him and kisses him, and then she disappears into the sea. We see her swimming under water and she no longer has legs; she’s got a fishtail. And she’s spotted by that crazy scientist.

She finds Allen’s wallet, looks at the papers, swims to a wreck, finds a chart....and we’re back in Manhattan. Allan’s head is bandaged....naked mermaid at the Statue of Liberty...she’s arrested. He picks her up at the police station. He’s transfixed when he sees her. She kisses him. She’s all over him and he doesn’t (quite) know how to deal with her. He tries to leave for work. But returns and grapples with her. He leaves for work. She learns English from watching TV. Decides to go shopping.

And so forth and so on. I could go on and on with this, but this will have to do....for now.

* * * * *

[1] I analyze this dynamic in some detail in my essay, At the Edge of the Modern, or Why is Prospero Shakespeare's Greatest Creation? Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 21(3): 259-279, 1998, https://www.academia.edu/235334/At_the_Edge_of_the_Modern_or_Why_is_Prospero_Shakespeares_Greatest_Creation

The Devil Wears Prada 2 [Media Notes 182]

I saw the original The Devil Wears Prada back in 2006, when I came out in theaters, and then again in 2022 on one of the streaming platforms. I can’t say that I remember much about it, but if it looked as good as The Devil Wears Prada 2, which I watched in a theater, then I probably liked it. Why? Because the current film is gorgeous and gorgeousness certainly counts for something in a movie. It surely counts for something, even something important. But I can’t carry the whole film.

And neither can a vibe. I’m talking about Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, the haughty editor of Runway magazine, a high-class fashion magazine. As soon as the film gets going you know that somewhere down the line that this b*tch Lady Boss will reveal herself to have, if not a heart of gold, at least one filled with crème brûlée. How do you know this? Because you’ve seen lots of movies and that’s how these roll. But you can’t hang the whole damn movie on that unveiling so that the revelation eclipses whatever events brought it about. That’s what Prada 2 does and, I’m willing at this point to assume, the original as well.

Somewhere within view of the end, Priestly is talking with Emily (played by Emily Blunt), a former assistant and explaining why she never promoted her within the magazine. She tells her: “You don't have what it takes. I'm sorry, but you're not a visionary. You're a vendor.” I know what the words mean, but in this context I’m afraid they don’t compute.

There’s nothing in the movie that gives meaning to the idea of a visionary editor of a fashion rag. We’re supposed to believe that that’s what Miranda is because, well, that’s what the plot requires of her, and that’s what she thinks of herself. That’s not enough. In The Aviator (2004) Martin Scorsese shows us what made Howard Hughes a visionary. Francis Ford Coppola does the same for failed auto maker Preston Tucker in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988). For that matter, the 2024 documentary, Martha, shows us that Martha Stewart was a visionary, and the first Lady Boss to become a billionaire. None of that, whatever it is, made it into the Prada films.

What we see are gorgeous clothes in beautiful settings. I hardly even noticed the “plot” in this film, which is about Runway being taken over by tech billionaire who has no interest in fashion. All he cares about is generating clicks he can sell to advertisers and settling his girlfriend, the afore-mentioned Emily, in as the new editor. The plot is foiled by Andy (Anne Hatheway), also from the old days (and the original film). What I’ll remember, however, is a beautiful light blue sport jacket in a subtle windowpane plaid worn by Nigel (Stanley Tucci), fashion director for the magazine.

No, I’m afraid there are no visionaries in the movie. Just vendors. High class vendors perhaps, but still vendors. All that talk about beauty and art doesn’t change that. 

* * * * * 

P.S. For very different look at the world of fashion, take a look at the Japanese series Atelier [Media Notes 110]. It's much more intimate, but also includes a central character reminiscent of Anna Wintour.

The Fairy Voice Mother reacts to “Unchained Melody” [Media Notes 181]

Fairy Voice Mother says:

In this video, I (a contemporary voice specialist) analyse “Righteous Brothers” performing “Unchained Melody” (Live in 1965) on the fly, whilst watching and hearing it for the first time.

Watch me adoringly describe Bobby Hatfield’s incredibly classy use of vocal technique, obsess over his ingenious switch-a-roo between Mode 1 & 2 (head to chest voice) and dive into to the magic of contrast. In this video, I analyse the composition and vocal performance in depth. I explain and demonstrate the vocal techniques (from an anatomical perspective), and ultimately tell you what I think makes this so great.

I love this video. I love the song and performance and have listened to a half-zillion times in the last two years or so. And I love both Lolli’s spontaneous reactions and her explanations of vocal technique. She thinks about the voice like I think about the trumpet. And there’s some cross-over between the two. She talks about manipulating the vocal cavity to influence the sound. Trumpet players do the say thing, though we don’t quite have the same range of control because of the constraints imposed by the instrument itself.

BTW, I'm treating this as a media note because I want to draw some attention to the reaction video as a genre. Now that I've posted this I'll probably post some more reaction videos.

I’d forgotten how hilarious Tootsie is [Media Notes 180]

I’d seen the movie when it originally played in theaters [1982] and I’d watched it several years ago on some streaming platform (probably Netflix). I watched it again last night [May 10, 2026] and laughed myself silly two or three times, including the ending, which surprised me, and I’d seen the movie at least twice before. Nor did I remember that Bill Murray was in it, nor Dabney Coleman and Charles Durning. Did I remember Jessica Lange or Teri Garr? Maybe a little. What I mostly remember is Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey, a talented actor whose intrusive perfectionism (he actually went full-tilt “method” on a 30-second gig he had as a tomato in a TV commercial) has kept directors from hiring him. So, what does he do? Out of sheer orneriness he goes up for a part an actress friend of his (Terri Garr) failed to get in a soap opera, Southwest General. And wouldn’t you know, he gets it!

And now he’s stuck as Dorothy Michaels playing Emily Kimberly, hospital administrator. Yes, he’s got a gig, an income, but now he’s got to play Dorothy Michaels to the cast and staff of the TV program. His first test as Dorothy comes the first day on set when he plays a scene with the hospital’s Chief Surgeon, known as “the tongue” among the other actresses. When Kimberly sees him going in for the kiss Dorothy bashes him on the head with her clipboard and improvises her way through the rest of the scene. It works! Other things work as well. Before you know it Dorothy’s a hit and the show picks up her option for another year. Now Michael’s stuck. Another year? That’s more than he’d planned on. Way, more. No!

At one point Dorothy is talking with another cast member, Julie Nichols (played by Jessica Lange) who’s complaining about men. She tells Dorothy what she would like to hear from a man some time:

“Hey, listen. You know I'm confused about this too. I could lay a big line on you, we could do a lot of role-playing, but the simple truth is I find you very interesting and I'd really like to make love to you.”

That WOULD be refreshing now, wouldn’t it?

At this point we know of course that that line is going to come back a bit later in the film, this time headed in the other direction. And it does. Michael Dorsey is at a party talking with Julie and says, “Hey, listen. You know I'm confused about this too....” As soon as he opens his mouth we know what will happen. Sure enough, he gets a glass of wine tossed in his face.

THAT’s what I remember from the movie. Not the fact that Julie’s father (played by Charles Durning) decided to court Dorothy and asks her to marry him, nor that Julie was having an affair with the director, Ron Carlisle (played by Dabney Coleman); and I’d completely forgotten that Sidney Pollack played Dorsey’s agent. So much forgetting, such a funny movie. And the movie’s title, Tootsie? That’s what Carlisle, an unrepentant sexist, called Dorothy, who didn’t like it, at all. But it stuck.

Here’s what Roger Ebert said (taken from the Wikipedia entry):

“Tootsie is the kind of Movie with a capital M that they used to make in the 1940s, when they weren't afraid to mix up absurdity with seriousness, social comment with farce, and a little heartfelt tenderness right in there with the laughs. This movie gets you coming and going...The movie also manages to make some lighthearted but well-aimed observations about sexism. It also pokes satirical fun at soap operas, New York show business agents and the Manhattan social pecking order.”

Tootsie was nominated for nine academy awards and got one, Jessica Lange for Best Supporting Actress.

On the Appeal of Tne Rockford Files [Media Notes 164 A] {Beware of work-mode!}

I've been watching The Rockford Files again and though I should write up a post about the appeal of the show. But I decided to check the blog first and, wouldn't you know it, I'd already written that post, in June of 2025. So instead I'm just bumping that post to the top of the queue along with a prefatory note. If you look toward the end of the post, the highlighted areas, you'll see that I brought up work mode, pointing out that Rockford doesn't seem possessed by it. 

Now that I'm explicitly thinking in terms of a contrast between Homo economicus and Homo Ludens that in itself seems sufficient to revisit this post. I'm thinking that might be a good way of analyzing the show. Rockford's wayward buddy, Angel Martin, also manages to keep work mode at bay. He met Angel where? Prison, that's right, prison. But he was pardoned. Jim – that's his name, "Jim Rockford" – and Angel are contrasted with Rocky, his retired truck-driving father, and his good friend, Dennis Becker, an overworked cop. Rocky's always after to Jim to get a legit job, like driving a truck.

That's a beginning. I wonder how far we could get with that? Here's the original post, though I added a phrase at the very end.

* * * * * 

I’m currently working my way through The Rockford Files for the fourth, if not the fifth, time. I watched the program when I was originally broadcast back in 1974-1980, and I’ve watched it online several times in this century. Part of the program’s appeal certainly comes from the star, James Garner.

Garner is a handsome middle-aged man, six feet and perhaps an inch or two tall. He plays an easy going character, James Rockford, who is masculine without being macho. He can handle himself in a fight, which he frequently has to do, but he’s not a martial artist or a superhero. He’s competent, but vulnerable and takes his lumps. He likes sports, going to games, going fishing, often with his dad. He’s single, but is attractive to women, and kind. He’s had affairs in the past, and has one or three in the course of the show, he may even have been close to marriage.

Much of the appeal stems from the fact that he’s an interstitial character, if you will. He falls between the keys, lives in the cracks. While he makes a living, just barely, he’s not chained to a 9-to-5 job. He’s not been broken to harness.

He’s an ex-convict who’s been pardoned. Was he ever guilty? Probably not, but I don’t recall off hand. Does it matter? He’s damaged goods. He lives in a beat-up trailer on the beach at Malibu, a marginal dwelling in a desirable location.

He makes his living as a private investigator, which is depicted as a marginal occupation in this, and other shows, but not always. While he’s a decent and honest man, he does quite a bit of sneaking around and more than a little deception. There are a number of episodes where he orchestrates a complex con, though on behalf of a good cause. Always.

He’s got a good friend on the police force, Lt. Dennis Becker, but is otherwise persona non grata with the police force. And he’s friends with a good lawyer, Beth Davenport, who once had a crush on him. He’s also got an ex-con pal, Angel Martin, who’s a bit more marginal than he is, and cowardly as well, yet somehow manages to retain Rockford’s loyalty.

All of which is to say, he doesn’t work within the confines of work-mode, as I’ve been writing about it. Life is not easy for Jim Rockford. He’s often broke, and in at least one episode that I can remember, in danger of losing his home. But his life is interesting and challenging.

I wonder, off hand, how many TV shows present us with lives that are NOT dominated by work mode? And in work-place shows, just how is work depicted? How much entertainment presents us with alternatives to work-mode? And how often is the alternative presented as a critique of work-mode?

Is The Rockford Files a critique? I don’t think so. It’s not pointed enough. Perhaps that’s why it’s been so popular. It presents a clear alternative, a clear difference-from, but it never goes so far as to present the work-a-day world as a soul-destroying trap, though the depiction of Becker comes awfully close to that. 

* * * * * 

Also about The Rockford Files: Myth-Logic and a Lady Librarian in The Rockford Files, Myth-Logic and a Lady Librarian in The Rockford Files 2.

Pretty Woman [Media Notes 179]

I’ve seen Pretty Woman (1990) at least three times, once when it came out, once before on streaming, and just last night. I like it. It’s a nice romantic comedy and something of a fairy tale, but that’s OK, I suppose.

It is very much a story of its time. Richard Gere plays a corporate raider, Edward Lewis, but not one so ruthless as Michael Douglas playing Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987). Julia Roberts plays a Hollywood street walker, Vivian Wood. Lewis picks her up, because he knows where his hotel is, but also because she seems to know something about the car he’s borrowed from his lawyer (a Lotus), and ends up engaging her for the week. She accompanies him to several business meetings, but also to a night at the opera. They fall in love, of course; he relents on the deal he’s been chasing; and she goes back to New York with him where, we are to presume, they live happily ever after.

The world, of course, is not like that, not quite. And I doubt that anyone over twenty who saw the movie believes that. But it’s a nice alternative to the  self-glorifying  Gordon Gekko. I can even believe that Gordon Gekko would have liked it, or if not Gekko himself, perhaps his understudy, Bud Fox (played by Charlie Sheen). Corporate raider types are not long on self-knowledge, no more than today’s Silicon Valley tech bros, and so are as vulnerable to fairly tales as to tales of Viking raiders.

And perhaps that’s why I like it. It’s as though Gordon Gekko is so reprehensible in his thralldom to Homo economicus that Hollywood just had to show us an antidote. It picked a perennial, the Hooker with a Heart of Gold, disguised, in this case, as a hooker who knows how to drive a stick shift and carries a rainbow assortment of condoms in her thigh high boots. Which is to say, the film acknowledges that we need some kind of Homo ludens alternative, even one that includes a bunch of rich folks stomping divots on a polo field, not to mention that Mr. Lewis betrays his soulfulness by noodling on the lounge piano in the wee hours of the morning.

The movie resonated with the public and made Julia Roberts a star. From the Wikipedia entry:

Pretty Woman received mixed reviews from critics upon release, but widespread praise was directed towards Roberts' performance and her chemistry with Gere. It had the highest number of ticket sales in the US ever for a romantic comedy, with Box Office Mojo listing it as the number-one romantic comedy by the highest estimated domestic tickets sold at 42,176,400, slightly ahead of My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) at 41,419,500 tickets. The film grossed US$463.4 million worldwide and at the time of its release, was the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, behind only E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ($701 million at the time), Star Wars ($530 million at the time), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ($474 million at the time), and Jaws ($470 million at the time). It was also the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time (surpassing Rain Man) until it was surpassed by Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, but remained the highest-grossing R-rated film released by Walt Disney Studios (surpassing Cocktail), holding the record for 34 years until Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine surpassed it in 2024.

From critic snippets Wikipedia:

Pretty Woman received mixed reviews from critics, with positive reviews praising the stars' chemistry and the dialogue. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 78 reviews. The website's critical consensus states, "Pretty Woman may be a yuppie fantasy, but the film's slick comedy, soundtrack, and casting can overcome misgivings." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

The film's detractors criticized the overuse of the "hooker with a heart of gold" trope.[14] Others opined that the film sugarcoats the realities of sex work. [...]

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "D," saying it "starts out as a neo-Pygmalion comedy" and becomes a "plastic screwball soap opera", with the "kinds of characters who exist nowhere but in the minds of callowly manipulative Hollywood screenwriters". Gleiberman conceded that with the film's "tough-hooker heroine, it can work as a feminist version of an upscale princess fantasy." [...] 

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave a positive review, praising how the film is about "a particularly romantic kind of love, the sort you hardly see in the movies these days". He added it "protects its fragile love story in the midst of cynicism and compromise. The performances are critical for that purpose. Gere plays new notes here; his swagger is gone, and he's more tentative, proper, even shy. Roberts does an interesting thing; she gives her character an irrepressibly bouncy sense of humor and then lets her spend the movie trying to repress it. [...]

The New York Times' Janet Maslin wrote: "Despite this quintessentially late 80's outlook, and despite a covetousness and underlying misogyny [...] 'Pretty Woman' manages to be giddy, lighthearted escapism much of the time. [...]

Carina Chocano of The New York Times said the movie "wasn't a love story, it was a money story. Its logic depended on a disconnect between character and narrative, between image and meaning, between money and value, and that made it not cluelessly traditional but thoroughly postmodern." In a 2019 interview, Roberts expressed uncertainty over whether the film could be made today due to its controversial premise, commenting, "So many things you could poke a hole in, but I don't think it takes away from people being able to enjoy it".

I’m with Ebert on this one.

Why Do I Like Veronica Mars? [Media Notes 178]

I watched the series when it first aired back in 2004-2005 and liked. It seemed a bit like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not with the mythology and such, but in underlying sensibility. We have a teenaged girl undertaking an adult role in the world. Buffy had to save it, Veronica merely solved mysteries, first of all the mystery of her best friend’s murder & her mother’s disappearance, which, I suppose, are cosmic enough.

Here’s how Wikipedia describes the show:

Veronica Mars is an American teen neo-noir mystery drama television series created by screenwriter Rob Thomas. The series is set in the fictional town of Neptune, California, and stars Kristen Bell as the eponymous character. The series premiered on September 22, 2004, during television network UPN's final two years, and ended on May 22, 2007, after a season on UPN's successor, The CW, airing for three seasons total. [...]

The character Veronica Mars is a student who progresses from high school to college while moonlighting as a private investigator under the tutelage of her detective father. In each episode, Veronica solves a different stand-alone case while working to solve a more complex mystery. The first two seasons of the series each had a season-long mystery arc, introduced in the first episode of the season and solved in the season finale. The third season took a different format, focusing on smaller mystery arcs that would last several episodes.

That’s a start.

Neptune is a small town not far from the Mexican border. It’s got a rich side and a middle class to poor side. Both sides meet in high school, where they clash. Veronica’s middle class; her murdered best friend was rich. So that’s part of the tension and the vibe, Veronica shuttling between the two. Her boy friends are from the rich side. Her running buddies, not so much. One of them is a Hispanic head of a biker gang. It’s an interesting mix.

I supposed I could say that Kristen Bell sparkles as Veronica, but I’m sure Veronica would cringe at the word “sparkles,” probably Kristen too. Heck, I cringe at it as well, but there it is. Enrico Colantoni plays her father with deadpan cool. You may have seen him as Mathesar in Galaxy Quest. Come to think of it, Veronica Mars has Galaxy Quest undertones. Overtones?

You get the idea.

Anaconda (2025) is absurd and hilarious [Media Notes 177]

Two scenes had me laughing as hard as I’ve laughed in a year or three.

Wikipedia:

Anaconda is a 2025 American action-adventure comedy horror film[5] that serves as a meta-reboot of Anaconda (1997) and is the seventh installment in the Anaconda film series. The film was directed by Tom Gormican, who co-wrote it with Kevin Etten, and stars Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zahn, Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior and Selton Mello. The story follows a group of childhood friends trying to remake the 1997 film, only to be attacked by a giant and murderous anaconda. [...]

Childhood friends Doug McCallister, Ronald "Griff" Griffin, Kenny Trent, and Claire Simons are all dissatisfied with the way their lives have gone. When Griff, a television actor struggling to find work at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, reveals that he has obtained the rights to one of their favorite films, Anaconda, the group secures a loan and travels to the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil to make a low-budget indie version of the film.

The group are joined by Ana Almeida, a woman who claims to be the daughter of the boat rental operator they've been working with. While shooting, Griff accidentally kills Heitor, the semi-tame snake they were using. Griff and their snake handler Santiago Braga venture into the jungle to find a replacement, but Santiago is attacked by a massive anaconda that terrorizes the jungle.

And so forth. It goes downhill, round and round, from there.

Stand by Me and the demise of free-range childhood [like I had] [Media Notes 176]

Sarah Wildman, The End of the Free-Range, Device-Free ‘Stand By Me’ Childhood, NYTimes, Mar. 22, 2026.

Wildman took her 12-year old daughter to see Stand by Me. Much to her surprise her daughter was fascinated:

After first seeing the film, my daughter asked my father, who spent his childhood in a small city in the Berkshires, if the freedom the film depicts was the freedom he had, if childhood once looked and sounded like that. She wondered if this sort of unobserved life was as he remembered it, if he might, just as these boys did, have set off for days without parental concern. He told her, with amusement, that he was, in fact, expected to be home for dinner, but beyond that, yes, he could roam, without surveillance. (He quibbled with the 12-year-olds’ smoking.)

The central premise of the film is, essentially, a postwar, middle grade “Odyssey.” The boys of “Stand by Me” — played by Wil Wheaton, Jerry O’Connell, Corey Feldman and River Phoenix — encounter obstacles: brutal or absent parents, a purportedly terrifying dog, bloodsucking leeches and a set of drag-racing teenage hoodlums who wield as weapons pocketknives and lit cigarettes. News arrives via overheard gossip (one boy learns the location of the dead body from his brother) or hand-held transistor radio. They live almost entirely outdoors. Along the way, they come to realize their friendships far outrank the prize of their discovery.

I, too, was struck by the sheer wildness once permitted children. The autonomy of the boys in “Stand by Me” is vastly different from the freedoms allowed a child living in 2026, when each is practically AirTagged, when we can track a car or a person’s phone across a map on a device in our palms, when we can know each moment of every day where each and every person in our home can be found. A gathering of children is more likely to be in front of a screen than with a rucksack and a deck of cards, as in the movie. Children are all too often found languishing alone in their bedrooms, direct messaging their friends, which not only reduces the likelihood of them being covered in leeches but also vastly decreases their chances of discovering anything at all.

There's much more at the link.

The Greatest Night in Pop [Media Notes 174]

Ian Leslie writes about The Greatest Night in Pop, a documentary about the making of "We Are The World." The opening paragraphs:

The Netflix documentary, The Greatest Night In Pop, tells the story of the making of We Are The World, the 1985 charity single featuring (almost) everyone in American pop at the time: Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Diana Ross, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Dionne Warwick…the list goes on and on.

The documentary is based on hours of footage from the night they recorded the single, only a few minutes of which was used for the original music video. The Greatest Night In Pop (TGNIP) came out eighteen months ago, and while millions of people have viewed it, I’m constantly surprised to learn that many have not. Everyone should.

If I had to recommend a documentary or just ‘something to watch on TV’ for absolutely anyone - man or woman, old or young, liberal or conservative, highbrow or lowbrow - I’d recommend The Greatest Night In Pop. It may not be the deepest, most profound ninety minutes of TV, but it is irresistibly enjoyable. And actually, like the best pop, it is deep; it just doesn’t pretend to be.

Diversity and roles:

I’ve written before about how diversity needs to be interpreted beyond demographic attributes like race and gender to temperament and personality. The British management researcher Meredith Belbin constructed a famous inventory of behavioural types which together make up a successful team: the Resource Investigator, the Coordinator, the Shaper, the Catalyst, and so on.

TGNIP prompted me to come up with an inventory of my own: the Decider, the Connector, the Conscience, the Old Buck, the Disrupter, the Weirdo, and the Lover.

The players:

• The Decider: Quincy Jones
• The Connector: Lionel Richie
• The Conscience: Bob Geldof
• The Old Buck: Smokey robinson
• The Disrupter: Stevie Wonder
• The Weirdo: Bob Dylan
• The Lover: Diana Ross

H/t Tyler Cowen.

Mom – The family sitcom has come a long way since the 50s and 60s [Media Notes 173]

Mom (2013-2021) showed up on my Netflix feed sometime within the last month. I saw Allison Janney on the clip, a plus, as I liked her as C.J. Craig in The West Wing. I saw it was a sitcom. I’m certainly in the mood for a sitcom. And that title proclaimed, “family wholesomeness,” and yes, that’s there. But it’s not the wholesomeness of the sitcoms I grew up with. 

From the Wikipedia entry:

Set in Napa, California, it follows dysfunctional mother/daughter duo Bonnie and Christy Plunkett, who, after having been estranged for years while both struggled with addiction, attempt to pull their lives together by trying to stay sober. [...] Mom received acclaim from critics and audiences for the writing and performances (particularly Janney's), as well as for addressing real-life issues such as: alcoholism, drug addiction, teen pregnancy, addictive gambling, homelessness, relapse, cancer, death, erectile dysfunction, domestic violence, overdose, palsy, rape, obesity, stroke, ADHD and miscarriage; and for maintaining a deft balance between the humorous and darker aspects of these issues.

Whoa!

I grew up with, for example, Father Knows Best:

The series, which began on radio in 1949, aired as a television show for six seasons and 203 episodes. Created by Ed James, Father Knows Best follows the lives of the Andersons, a middle-class family living in the town of Springfield. The state in which Springfield is located is never specified, but it is generally accepted to be located in the Midwestern United States. [...] As before, the character of Margaret was portrayed as a voice of reason, and Jim's character was that of a thoughtful father who offered sage advice in response to his children's problems. A responsible man, he loved his wife and children and would do whatever he could to give them a better life. Jim was a salesman and manager of the General Insurance Company in Springfield, while Margaret was a housewife. Their home was located at 607 Maple Avenue. One history of the series characterized the Andersons as "truly an idealized family, the sort that viewers could relate to and emulate." As the two eldest children aged from teenager to young adult, Betty (1956) and Bud (1959) graduated from high school and attended Springfield Junior College.

That’s a different world, very different.

I wonder how much daytime soaps changed over the same period?

BTW, I’ve now finished the first two seasons (of eight) of Mom, and will continue watching, though I don’t know whether or not I’ll go the distance. All that stuff that Wikipedia passage mentions, I’ve seen much/most of it in these two seasons. It’s light and enjoyable, which is what I was looking for. That is to say, it really is about family solidarity, even if the families involved are dysfunctional and centered on single moms. Every episode has one, two, or three scenes in an AA meeting. So we’ve got scenes of dysfunction in action, AA meetings (for a little distance), and reconciliation. For the most part, it works.