TELEVISION

Elizabeth Ito’s Neighborhood: “City of Ghosts” and the Rise of Netflix Animation

Phillip Maciak explores the extraordinary niche that “City of Ghosts” occupies in Netflix’s varied animated programming....

PHILLIP MACIAK

TELEVISION

Studio Branding in the Streaming Wars

Joshua Glick considers the differentiation strategies of the streaming platforms in historical context....

JOSHUA GLICK

TELEVISION

The Appearance of Light: On Barry Jenkins’s “The Underground Railroad”

On “The Underground Railroad,” illumination travels across media, refracting and shapeshifting....

JORGE COTTE

TELEVISION

Blue Skies Again: Streamers and the Impossible Promise of Diversity

Kristen Warner explores the “illusion [of] the democratizing, diverse ideal of streaming.”...

KRISTEN WARNER

TELEVISION

Streaming Enthusiasm and the Industrious Family Drama

Michael Szalay on what the rise of streaming platforms and their dark family dramas tell us about the US flagging empire....

MICHAEL SZALAY

TELEVISION

Cobra Kai, the Twilight of American Empire, and the Allure of Paramilitary Violence

Albert Wu and Michelle Kuo explore how Cobra Kai manages to tackle American empire, wealth disparity, and rising fascism without cynicism....

ALBERT WU, MICHELLE KUO

TELEVISION

Queer Girls in The Wilds: Refusing White Feminism's Settler Colonial Fantasy

Hannah Manshel and Margaret A. Miller explore the various colonial and anti-colonial valances of Amazon's The Wilds....

HANNAH MANSHEL, MARGARET A. MILLER

TELEVISION

Breaking the Waves: Britney Spears and Lars von Trier in Lockdown

Philippa Snow watches Hulu's Framing Britney Spears and a few other films about the destruction of women at the hands of hateful men....

PHILIPPA SNOW

TELEVISION

Seven Plus Seven Plus Me: The Up Series Under Lockdown

In the wake of Michael Apted's passing, Claire Marie Healy revisits the director's most lasting monument: the sprawling, poetic Up series....

CLAIRE MARIE HEALY

TELEVISION

Anthony and Carmela Get Vaccinated

Peter Coviello misses his family in New Jersey — and everything else in the pandemic year — through a full rewatch of The Sopranos....

PETER COVIELLO

TELEVISION

Negative Space: Close Reading Trauma Porn

Maya Gurantz dissects the structure and comes to terms with the compulsive appeal of streaming abuse documentary series....

MAYA GURANTZ

TELEVISION

Negotiating the Generic Closet in the Writers' Room

In an excerpt from The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom, Alfred L. Martin Jr. explores the politics of writers' rooms....

ALFRED L. MARTIN JR.

TELEVISION

Disney's Disembodied Black Characters

From The Princess and the Frog to Soul, Hope Wabuke asks why can't Disney let Black characters play Black characters?...

HOPE WABUKE

TELEVISION

No Witness: "Warrior" and the Histories of Anti-Asian Violence

Min Hyoung Song considers the nineteenth-century world of Cinemax's martial arts series Warrior in light of contemporary Anti-Asian violence....

MIN HYOUNG SONG

TELEVISION

Nostalgia for Nostalgia: BTS on American TV

In the wake of their spectacular Grammy performance, Michelle Cho reads the ultra-mediated nostalgia of Korean pop group BTS on American TV....

MICHELLE CHO

TELEVISION

The Political Economy of Chappelle’s Redemption Songs

Matt Seybold on what Dave Chappelle's return tells us about celebrity and corporate power....

MATT SEYBOLD

ECONOMICS AND FINANCE

TELEVISION

Listening for the Caribbean on "The Crown"

Sasha Ann Panaram seeks out the easily skipped, potentially transgressive soundtrack playing at the edges of Netflix's The Crown....

SASHA ANN PANARAM

TELEVISION

Bad Form: Sexual Abuse and Ambiguity on "A Teacher"

Anna Krauthamer explores the rigid oscillation between the stark content warnings and ambiguous aesthetics of FX on Hulu's A Teacher....

ANNA KRAUTHAMER

TELEVISION

Speculative Fictions: Finance, Excess, and HBO's Industry

Jorge Cotte explores the fraught speculations of HBO's series Industry alongside the recent GameStop stock trading frenzy....

JORGE COTTE

TELEVISION

Pilot Episode: On the Greatness of Kaley Cuoco

Philippa Snow writes in praise of Kaley Cuoco's stunning, elastic, fleet-footed performance in the HBO Max thriller The Flight Attendant....

PHILIPPA SNOW

TELEVISION

This Should Be a Movie: “American Utopia,” the Concert Film, and Extending a Terrific Moment

Sara Black McCulloch considers the nature of the concert film — its scope, its liveness, and its political commitments....

SARA BLACK MCCULLOCH

TELEVISION

FILM

POLITICS

MUSIC

Shondaland’s Regency: On “Bridgerton”

Patricia A. Matthew examines the multicultural Regency era of Shonda Rhimes's new Netflix series Bridgerton....

PATRICIA A. MATTHEW

TELEVISION

Call Me By No Name: On "Rebecca"

Tania Modleski watches new Netflix's adaptation of Rebecca and tracks the puzzling misreadings and misleadings of its source material....

TANIA MODLESKI

TELEVISION

FILM

Wrapped in Plastic: On Courtenay Stallings’s “Laura’s Ghost”

Sophia Stewart reviews “Laura’s Ghost,” a feminist-ethnographic collection revisiting the gender politics of “Twin Peaks,” the series and the film....

SOPHIA STEWART

TELEVISION

FILM

GENDER & SEXUALITY

BACK