RIP Dolly Parton and Tim Curry

The deaths of Dolly Parton and Tim Curry were the big news pieces this week, at least in the circles I swim in. The close proximity of them passing, and their shared age, gave me flashbacks to the great celebrity die-off of 2016, which kicked off with David Bowie and just went through the rest of that horrible year.

It's a little late to consider it such a big wave, and while both deaths are sad, there isn't the feeling of careers being cut short - after all, Bowie had just released Blackstar, and Alan Rickman and Prince could have continued acting and singing, respectively, for years if they hadn't died that year, whereas Tim Curry had retired from acting and Dolly Parton had released her last studio album in 2023 (though with release and touring cycles, that didn't mean she was done with recording).

Still, I was struck by the outpouring of grief, particularly for Dolly - I've seen multiple outlets and commentators suggest she was the last person all Americans could agree on. That said, she'd already become the patron saint of the internet, much like Betty White before her, being acclaimed as a woman in a traditionally male field who not only became instantly recognizable but never seemed to have a bad word to say about anyone. And you know, I don't habitually look for Trump's thoughts on celebrity deaths, but even he couldn't seem to think of anything shitty to say about her.

Whereas, for me, the passing of Tim Curry means one less of those British actors, like Alan Rickman, who had that grounding in classic theater and who'd worked with some of the greatest of the previous generation. Curry might never have been a household name, but he was in so many movies and shows over the years, and he looked so distinctive, that of course everyone knew him. And not only that, but his Pennywise still put Bill Skarsgård's to shame.

Both passings are a reminder that time goes on, and the familiar faces or voices you grew up with eventually fall silent. At least Dolly leaves behind a legacy of love, and Tim Curry leaves behind a legacy of deeply scarring generations of children, whether as the Lord of Darkness or Pennywise, and of making older versions of those kids roar with laughter for his role in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Both worthwhile legacies!

Press Responsibility in the Age of Disinformation and Pile-Ons

Spent this weekend thinking about the press this weekend, given the news that the embattled former Cambridge professor Jason Arday had been found dead at home, just a few days after resigning from his position. And my thoughts on the press and its responsibilities were intensified as I watched some coverage and debate about the White House's executive order about MMR vaccines for children.

In the first case, I have to admit that I wasn't paying much attention until Arday resigned from Cambridge. But when I woke up yesterday to read that he'd died, it felt sadly inevitable, given that his story had dominated the Guardian's webpage for a while. Obviously it became a lightning rod for bad-faith culture warriors, and accusations of plagiarism are not to be taken lightly... but also, he was a vulnerable person, and I can't imagine that there weren't other things happening in the world that might have been more important than whether a professor actually ran all those marathons?

Cambridge feels like it should bear more of the blame, but the Guardian and other UK media outlets that covered this story should probably consider whether they'd do it the same way again.

And then we come to the vaccines thing. I wasn't paying full attention, because it was on a TV at the gym, but I saw enough - it was CNN's show The Arena, and it had some Democrats and Republicans debating stuff, among which was the recent executive order to space out vaccinations for kids.

My problem with this was how much coverage the show gave the order, including showing footage of Donald Trump lying about how doctors have been putting "needles the size of soda bottles" into kids. I agree that stuff like this needs to be covered, and perhaps even debated (though I dispute that debate shows are "news", or that they do anything but provide exposure for the same round of pundits). But running Trump's comments like that felt irresponsible - the claim is simply not true, for one thing, and the debate format means that the focus isn't on informing and correcting, but on scoring rhetorical points.

Talking about it with my dad, he brought up some primetime address that the "president" made earlier this year, where he waffled on about some grievance or other. The upshot was that a couple of the major networks didn't carry the speech, simply because they wouldn't have been able to verify or check his claims - which feels like a responsible move, unlike CNN's coverage yesterday.

What CNN did feels too much like the quote-tweet feature on Twitter, before That Other Guy took it over: too many otherwise progressive voices would QT shitty comments from right-wingers, thinking they were dunking on the original poster, when in fact they'd just be amplifying their reach.

Does CNN running that footage of Trump saying that patent BS mean more people are going to avoid vaccinating their kids? The problem is that there are so many uninformed people out there that probably swallow that line uncritically, without checking it - and with Trump, it's not about the things he says, so much as the fact that he can muddy the waters and piss people off with his claims.

And let's be real here: uninformed people with no sense of discernment is why we got Trump a second time (as well as the first). Don't give me any guff about voter anger: we knew what we were getting in 2024.

So yeah, I wish news organizations would be more careful about how they cover stories like these, especially since both are tied into the culture wars in different ways. In one case a vulnerable person died because of what amounted to a media witch hunt, and in the other, mendacious comments were given a platform and consideration that they don't deserve. Outlets need to consider what they're saying when they choose how to cover a specific story.

Devil Wears Prada 2

Of all the movies I've watched recently, the one I'm moved to write about here, today, is The Devil Wears Prada 2. I don't think I ever expected to be interested in it, since I've passed through the past two decades without having to think about its prequel hardly at all, but as is often the way with these things, a lot of things came together for this to happen.

Obviously, the first factor was the chatter around it when it came out. I listen to the Scriptnotes podcast, and they're great friends with Aline Brosh McKenna, who wrote both movies, so I got to hear her talk about it. A friend in my writing group also talked about it, which put it in my head, as well.

I then didn't think about either of the Devil Wears Prada movies for months, until the Odyssey came out, and suddenly Anne Hathaway was buzzy again. The final straw was seeing that Devil Wears Prada 2 was on Disney Plus, so I started by watching the first film last week and then watching the sequel last night.

And yeah, I can see what the buzz was about. It helps that both movies track my career in a number of ways - the first one came out in 2006, when I'd just finished journalism school and was trying to make my way in the world of London publishing. The second comes as I'm still reeling from cutbacks in media and research, though I've long since left capital-J JOURNALISM and have been doing industry research. But I won't deny that the first five minutes of Prada 2, where Anne Hathaway's character Andy Sachs loses her job to media cuts just moments before winning an award for her journalism, were triggering AF.

Beyond the glitzy settings and catwalks and star turns from the likes of Stanley Tucci, the second film - even more than the first - is a paean to taking pride in your work. In a way it's softer and more gentle than the first one, where the climax features Miranda Priestley essentially stabbing her faithful assistant Nigel in the back to outmaneuver her rival - while that movie ends on an uplifting note, with Andy leaving Runway Magazine but still getting a recommendation from Miranda, it doesn't really portray Miranda as sympathetic or an ally to Andy.

The second one absolutely puts them in the same boat, as they try to stave off job cuts that would destroy the magazine. It ends with Andy and Miranda on the same team, and Andy befriending Emily, who's basically the main antagonist in this movie - which may come from Aline Brosh McKenna not wanting to have all the female characters at odds with one another.

That's not a criticism, by the way, it makes for a good dynamic that humanizes both Miranda and Emily, especially given that these central relationships play out against the backdrop of rich tech and finance bros gutting things that are enjoyable in the name of maximizing profits.

And that's part of what makes Prada 2 so timely - so many news outlets have been ruined by money people and the obsessive quest to "drive engagement". Succession tackles the topic too, but the Prada movies do it with a lot more humor and fun - and the settings are so lush that it really made me miss living in London and working in the self-evidently less glamorous business of trade journalism.

The other thing that surprised me about these movies was that they aren't romcoms, despite what I'd naively assumed. Not that I'm against romcoms, I've seen a lot of good ones, but romance isn't a central part of the first Prada film (apart from Andy's relationship disintegrating as she gives more of herself to the job). It's more central to the second movie, but once again relegated to a subplot rather than being the central relationship - that's Andy and Miranda, and Andy's boyfriend is amiable enough, without drawing too much oxygen himself.

As a final thought, it also struck me how I could do worse than modeling my look off Stanley Tucci. He's a great character across both movies, and a style icon for follicularly challenged gentlemen like myself - at the very least I should get some glasses like his. That's possibly the only consumerist message I take from these movies, which despite the fashion world they take place in, work more as workplace dramas. They seem frothy and fun, like Emily in Paris, but they've got a lot more to say about work and what you give to the job - and they're both easy watches, not too long or dense. Check them out.