Culture Gabfest - The Very Worst Person in the World
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2022
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, the panel begins by discussing the Norwegian Oscar contenderThe Worst Person in the World. Then, they're joined by Slate’s TV critic and host of the Decoder Ring podcast, Willa Paskin, to digest the New York Time’s latest hit podcast The Trojan Horse Affair. Finally, the panel is joined by screenwriter, director, and journalist Michael Idov to discuss Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pivot from the entertainment industry to president of Ukraine.
In Slate Plus, the panel answers a question from a listener about their most divisive feelings about certain directors and writers.
Email us at culturefest@slate.com.
Endorsements
Dana: The band She Wants Revenge from the early 2000s, especially their self-titled album from 2006—even more specifically, the single “These Things.”
Julia: A late endorsement for the 2000s show Veronica Mars which is currently on Hulu.
Steve: The original version of the Swedish/Danish show The Bridge, which also had an American remake.
Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Nadira Goffe.
Outro music is "Back to Silence" by OTE
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gapfest, the very worst person in the world edition. |
| 0:16.6 | It's Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 on today's show. |
| 0:20.5 | We continue our march to the Oscars with |
| 0:23.1 | the worst person in the world. A Norwegian film nominated for Best International Feature and for Best |
| 0:28.8 | Screenplay. It's directed by Joachim Trier. And then, Serial, the mother of us all in the |
| 0:34.6 | podcasting business, returns with the Trojan Horse Affair about an anonymous letter that upended the lives of Muslims in Birmingham, England, while setting off an Islamophobic panic throughout the UK. It's co-hosted by Brian Reed, he of Shetown, a huge hit for serial productions, and the first-time journalist Hamza Syed. And finally, the crisis in Ukraine promises to reshape our world going forward. |
| 0:58.2 | Pop culture and culture, culture included, we will discuss with the writer Michael Idev. |
| 1:04.2 | Joining me today is Julia Turner, Deputy Managing Editor of the LA Times. |
| 1:08.3 | Hey, Julia. |
| 1:09.3 | Hello, hello. |
| 1:10.5 | And of course, Dana Stevens, author of cameraman with some inscrutable babble as a subtitle. Hey, Dana. Hey, how are you doing, Steve? Yeah, yeah, yeah, good. I should say you're also the film critic of Slate. And Steve, if I could, just since you mentioned my book, I wanted to shout out to any listeners who are in Austin, Texas, that I will be there next week on Tuesday, March the 8th. At 7 p.m., I'm showing The Cameraman, the Buster Keaton film from 1928 at the Austin Film Society. So if anybody hearing this lives in Austin and wants to come see me present the cameraman and sign some books afterwards, then look at the Austin Film Society website, |
| 1:45.1 | and I'll see you there. |
| 1:46.4 | Shall we do this? |
| 1:47.9 | Let us do. |
| 1:48.8 | Okay. |
| 1:50.0 | Yulia, the lead character in the movie, worst person in the world, is now 30, turning 30, |
| 1:55.7 | and she's never figured out who she is or what she wants to do. |
| 1:58.9 | She's smart, easygoing, likable, and I think it's fair |
| 2:01.7 | to say, very beautiful. But finally, a little disconnected or remote, and one of those people |
| 2:07.8 | who's burdened by capital T, capital F, the future, which is always there lurking, but never quite |
| 2:13.5 | comes for her. The movie is a dark quasi-rom-com with existentialist leanings, and it's directed |
| 2:19.0 | by Joachim Trier. It's a meditation on love and being, and about the price of not choosing |
... |
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