Hello Kitty and Jon Stewart: The Week's Best Pop-Culture Writing
The most intriguing articles about entertainment we've come across in the past seven days
Let us know what we missed.
Jon Stewart on Directorial Debut Rosewater, His Daily Show Future, and Those Israel-Gaza Comments
Marisa Guthrie | The Hollywood Reporter
"'Look, there's a lot of reasons why I hate myself — being Jewish isn't one of them,' Stewart says. 'So when someone starts throwing that around, or throwing around you're pro-terrorist, it's more just disappointing than anything else.'"
The Emmys as a Flat Circle: Why Last Night's Ceremony Felt Familiar
Andy Greenwald | Grantland
"What was lacking was any evidence of the nimbleness, speed, and gleeful chance-taking that led the majority of those tuxedoed orange people into that theater to begin with."
More Adventurous
Christine Friar | The Hairpin
"One morning on my Sad Corporate Commute, 'Does He Love You?' came on shuffle and I either decided to give it another shot or didn’t realize it was from an album I’d decided not to like, and those opening lines. Hoo, baby."
"Are you a black woman? You might find this offensive. Are you a white woman? You might find this offensive. Are you neither? You might be thinking at this point that you're lucky to be left out of the entire thing."
Recommended Reading
I Was the Worst High School Quarterback Ever
Josh Keefe | Slate
"A quarterback who never wins a game is an inversion of everything the position represents. He is an illiterate valedictorian, a superhero who lets the bad guys destroy the universe."
Don't Be Silly, Hello Kitty Is a Cat
Brian Ashcraft | Kotaku
"Hello Kitty is not a house cat like Tom from Tom and Jerry. Well, Mickey Mouse isn't a mouse like Jerry, either. He can drive a car. Over the years, he's had various jobs. He even has a pet—a dog named Pluto. But, Mickey Mouse is indeed a mouse, just like Hello Kitty is a cat."
Tropes vs Anita Sarkeesian: On Passing Off Anti-Feminist Nonsense as Critique
Ian Steadman | The New Statesman
"It's easy to miss that, sometimes, the sum effect of those decisions can be that Assassin's Creed 2 ends up with a sequence where sex workers get their throats slit as a way of marking checkpoints. Pointing out how fucked up this is isn't tangential to experiencing games as art, it's necessary."
How to Reclaim the F-Word? Just Call Beyoncé
Jessica Bennett | Time
"No, you don’t have to like the way Beyoncé writhes around in that leotard—or the slickness with which her image is controlled—but whether you like it or not, she’s accomplished what feminists have long struggled to do: She’s reached the masses."
The Dissatisfied: To Leave or Not to Leave?
William Grimes | The New York Times
"The arts season now getting underway will, inevitably, include some less than stellar moments. Most audience members will suffer in silence. But a hardy few, invoking the implicit escape clause that comes with the price of admission, will walk out, for reasons as varied as the performances themselves."
Inside Dr. Seuss Inc.
Anna Russell | The Wall Street Journal
"While most children's publishing franchises fade after their heydays—remember Carolyn Haywood's Betsy and Eddie series?—Seuss keeps gaining in popularity."
A Great TV Experience in Person
Will Leitch | Sports on Earth
"Fans in the stands at football games, in this age of football basically propping up an otherwise staggered cable television industry, are there as ambiance, extras who actually pay the networks to serve as background."
The Troll Slayer
Rebecca Mead | The New Yorker
"In her quieter, private, remedial interactions with her critics—the late-night e-mails exchanged and the awkward conversations conducted over improbable lunches—[Mary] Beard has also demonstrated the potency of descending, inquiringly, from the podium."