The End of Institutions: Hollywood Edition

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A slap at the Oscars tarnished Will Smith’s legacy. What about him did Hollywood treasure? Is this institution just a screen for projecting our own social anxieties and cultural debate? Culture critic Soraya McDonald joins to take a deeper look at the roles Hollywood allows us to play, on screen and off. Plus, breaking down the exhausting reaction to Pixar’s defiantly Asian film, Turning Red, with Jeff Yang, the co-author of Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now. Read Jeff’s piece for The Guardian here.

Companion listening for this episode:

A Year of Performing Humanity, Reviewed (12/13/2021)

A.O. Scott, co-chief film critic of the New York Times, helps us review the year in culture. What can we learn from 2021’s art about our struggling effort to live together?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Did you watch Oscars?
0:03.7	No.
0:04.3	Some of it.
0:04.9	What have you all, as a group, been talking about since that day?
0:09.0	I think it was awesome that Samuel Jackson finally got his first Oscar.
0:14.2	I think that his work has been amazing and that he should have got it way ahead of this time.
0:19.6	But I'm happy that he finally got it.
0:21.2	As well as Will Smith, another black man having the best actor award.
0:25.7	The Death Actor, winning the first award for a Death Actor.
0:30.6	That was really memorable for me.
0:33.1	I've just been seeing a recent controversy regarding Will and Chris.
0:37.6	Why they said that things they said, why Will reacted the way he reacted.
0:42.2	Chris is a comedian, he makes jokes.
0:44.7	Will, there was no telling how anyone would have reacted to someone talking about their wife.
0:49.2	We could have taken that probably behind closed doors.
0:52.9	But that's just my opinion.
0:57.9	Welcome to the show.
0:58.7	I'm Kai Wright.
0:59.9	We're going to talk about Hollywood tonight.
1:01.9	This time last week, as I said goodbye on our show,
1:04.9	I could not have imagined that I was about to spend the next week consuming and joining
1:11.2	if I'm honest, joining debates about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock in the mouth on live television.
	...

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