2018 in Pop Culture

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2018

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The New Yorker staff writers Jia Tolentino, Doreen St. Félix, and Alexandra Schwartz all cover the culture beat from different angles. They talk with David Remnick about the emblematic pop-culture phenomena of 2018 that tell us where we were this year: how “Queer Eye” tried to fix masculinity, and how that spoke to women in the #MeToo era; whether “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians” will mark a turning point in the representation of nonwhite people in film; and how, as Tolentino says, “A Star Is Born” was r“arguably the only event of the year that brought America together.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios.
0:10.6	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. As we look back on 2018, I wanted to talk about the year in culture, the high points and the low points, the complicated and the problematic points.
0:22.5	And we'll do it with three of the keenest observers I know, Gia Tolentino, Doreen, St. Felix, and
0:27.5	Alexandra Schwartz, all staff writers at the New Yorker. And I asked each of them to come in with one big
0:33.7	story for the year in pop culture. Gia, let's start with you.
0:38.1	What did you bring in for us today?
0:39.4	Let's talk about a Starsborn.
0:41.3	Oh, that's please.
0:42.6	The event that brought America together,
0:44.9	arguably the only event of the year that brought America together.
0:47.8	It's the fourth remake of the 1937 classic.
0:52.5	Round two was Judy Garland.
0:53.6	Round three was Barbara Streisand. Round four is Gaga. Oh, I loved it. I loved it, too. And everybody loved it. Some people did not love it, but I loved it. I mean, but everyone kind of loved it. But why did you bring us all together, Gia? What's your thesis on this? Well, I think it really all starts with the song. It starts
1:12.3	with the shallow, which every time I've heard it in public around people like at karaoke or at a bar
1:18.7	or at a wedding, for example, it's like the whole room is just like defibrillated by the melody.
1:24.7	I mean, it is so, it is so good. I hope we can play a tiny clip from it.
1:29.7	It's that song.
1:30.4	It's the centerpiece.
1:31.3	If we play a clip, we need to play the primal roar.
1:34.6	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:35.1	We can play a little bit of the primal roar.
1:36.9	Oh.
	...

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