Dwight Schrute Was a Warning
When The Office originally aired, its resident fool made for easy comedy. Fifteen years later, it’s hard to watch Dwight without seeing tragedy.
Frontiers of Sports
When Your Hometown Team Gets a New Identity
Black fans of the Washington Football Team are adapting to a new future for their beloved franchise—and reckoning with its past disregard of Native Americans.
The ‘Great Man’ Theory of American Food
The prolific cookbook author James Beard helped shape the nation’s culinary identity—for better and for worse.
American Museums Are Going Through an Identity Crisis
Cultural institutions have faced hard questions about racial inclusivity for decades. This year, they might finally provide some answers.
A Horror Movie Where Wealth Is the Demon
The Nest is a brilliantly cast thriller and one of the year’s best films.
A Marching Band’s ‘Mountaintop’
How the Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps prepared for the big parade
Don’t Subject Your Kids to Rudolph
The world is bleak enough as it is.
Hillbilly Elegy Is One of the Worst Movies of the Year
The new Netflix film is a think-piece trap—shiny on the outside, hollow on the inside.
Christmas Dies Hard
The middle of a global pandemic might seem like a good time to cut back on holiday excess. But we live in America.
An Ode to Flight Attendants
They minister, they mollify, they bring us blankets.
The Return of Eddie Murphy
Without a road map, he blazed a trail for Black performers, and then lost his way. Now he’s back.
20 Movie Families to Spend Your Holidays With
Excellent cinema for every mood, whether you’re feeling homesick, ruminative, or perfectly content
The Major Difference Between Black Male and Female Voters
Black male turnout for Trump wasn’t indicative of the president’s successful outreach efforts, but rather the long-standing relationship between this voting bloc and the GOP.
Margaret & Diana & Elizabeth & Nancy
Netflix’s The Crown and Showtime’s The Reagans offer four different models of female power colliding with history, and with one another.
The Pandemic Clarified Who the Kardashians Really Are
As Keeping Up With the Kardashians nears its 20th and final season, its family of influencers has lost the capacity to balance relatability and spectacle.
Tinnitus
Whitewashing the Great Depression
How the preeminent photographic record of the period excluded people of color from the nation’s self-image
The Many Lives of Adrienne Rich
Praised by W. H. Auden as neat and modest, she vowed to be passionate and radical instead.
The Letters That Outgoing Presidents Wrote to Their Successors
Each one reminds us what a peaceful—and gracious—transfer of power looks like.
The Role-Playing Game That Predicted the Future
Mike Pondsmith created Cyberpunk in 1988. Now it’s the inspiration for a highly anticipated video game—and an unlikely oracle.
Forget SNL. The Best Election Satire Is on TikTok.
The app’s young creators are outshining mainstream political comedy—and tapping into a longer tradition of Black American humor.
It Wasn’t a Gun
A material archive of police violence