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Still Processing

We Don't Know Where We Are

Still Processing

The New York Times

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.89.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2018

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, we take the Oscar-nominated film "Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri" as a starting point for a discussion about a new sense of placelessness in film and TV. Over the last year, we've been seeing stories set in ambiguous spaces--the limbo between heaven and hell, distorted models of our world, towns that look like no place we recognize as American. We talk about "The Good Place," "Westworld," "Downsizing," and the Sunken Place from "Get Out" to try and figure out how we lost a sense of where we are. Then we look to shows like "Atlanta" and "The Chi" to think about how we might find our way back. Discussed This Week: “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (Fox Searchlight Pictures) “Grownish” (Freeform) “Riverdale” (The CW) Hot Topic "Riverdale" Merchandise “Dennis Edwards, Former Temptations Lead Singer, Dies at 74” (Daniel E. Slotnik, The New York Times) "Don’t Look Any Further" (Dennis Edwards) "'Three Billboards’ Production Designer Inbal Weinberg on Martin McDonagh’s Unique Approach To Screen Language" (Matt Grobar, Deadline) “The Good Place” (NBC) “Stranger Things” (Netflix) “Coco” (Pixar) “Black Mirror” (Netflix) “Get Out” (Universal Pictures) “Dunkirk” (Warner Bros.) “Downsizing” (Paramount Pictures) “Westworld” (HBO) "Instravel - A Photogenic Mass Tourism Experience" (Oliver KMIA, Vimeo) “Singin’ in the Rain” (MGM) “Queen Sugar” (OWN) “Atlanta” (FX Networks) “Insecure” (HBO) “Black-ish” (ABC) “The Chi” (Showtime) “Moonlight” (A24) “Black Panther” (Marvel Studios) "Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience" (Yi-Fu Tuan, 1977) "Place and Placelessness" (Edward Relph, 1976) Super Bowl LII Commercials “Ram Trucks Commercial with Martin Luther King Jr. Sermon is Criticized” (Sapna Maheshwari, The New York Times) 2018 Kia Stinger - Steven Tyler Big Game Ad - Feel Something Again Blacture Super Bowl Ad Amazon Alexa Loses Her Voice - Super Bowl LII Commercial

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Jenna Wortham.

0:01.4

And I'm Wesley Morris.

0:02.7

We're two culture writers at the New York Times.

0:05.2

I'm mostly right about how humans relate to technology.

0:08.1

And I'm mostly right about how popular culture

0:10.0

and movies and stuff like that relate to humans.

0:12.4

This is still processing.

0:15.4

And we're back.

0:25.7

OK.

0:26.9

This week, you and I are going to talk about

0:28.9

three billboards outside of Ebenezery.

0:31.6

Frances McDermott is in it.

0:33.0

It's probably going to win a bunch of Oscars in a few weeks.

0:35.5

I'm holding my breath that does not come true.

0:38.3

And we're going to talk about the one thing

0:40.1

that really, really bothered us about it, which

0:42.3

is that it presents this off brand America.

0:46.0

That I mean, it seems to be America.

0:49.6

Where?

0:50.2

And it tells us where, but we don't really know.

0:52.0

I don't believe that.

0:52.9

But that same weird offness is showing up in other movies

...

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