Afleveringen
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Today: The undoing of Kanye West. âWeâre in deeply vile territory, and I canât make intellectual sense of that,â Wesley Morris says about West, who now goes by Ye.
In 2004, when Ye released âCollege Dropout," he seemed to be challenging Black orthodoxy in ways that felt exciting and risky. But over the years, his expression of âfreedomâ has felt anything but free. His embrace of anti-Black, antisemitic and white supremacist language âcomes at the expense of other peopleâs safety,â their humanity and their dignity, J Wortham says.
Wesley and J discuss what it means to divest from someone whose art, for two decades, had awed, challenged and excited you.
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âBlack Panther: Wakanda Foreverâ came into theaters with a huge responsibility: It had to address the death of Chadwick Boseman, the star of the first âBlack Pantherâ movie, who died of cancer in August 2020.
Wesley and J discuss how the film offers the audience an experience of collective grief and mourning â something that never happened in the United States in response to the losses of 2020. They interrogate what it means that this gesture of healing came from Marvel and Disney, a corporate empire that is in control of huge swaths of our entertainment, and not from another type of leadership.
Additional resources:
To hear what Wesley and J had to say about the first âBlack Pantherâ movie, listen to this episode of âStill Processingâ from 2018.
Ryan Coogler, the director of âWakanda Forever,â spoke to the author Ta-Nehisi Coates about the making of movie, and how it captured the real-life grief that people experienced after Chadwick Bosemanâs death. Listen to their conversation here.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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BeyoncĂ©âs latest album, âRenaissance,â showcases a pop star letting go of all expectations. Wesley and J go deep into the album and this new era of BeyoncĂ©. Itâs an era of play, freedom, comedy and queerness â unlike anything weâve ever heard from BeyoncĂ© Knowles-Carter before.
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Wesley and J discuss the push to âreturn to officeâ â and what it means for their lives, as well as American culture as a whole. What have 50 years of workplace sitcoms, from âThe Mary Tyler Moore Showâ to âAbbott Elementary,â taught us about our romance with the office? And what do TikTok parodies and the TV show âSeveranceâ get right about the history of labor in America? In this period of returning to so-called normalcy, Wesley and J reflect on how we can ensure that the lessons of the early pandemic arenât forgotten.
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Donna Summerâs 1977 hit âI Feel Loveâ is the inspiration for the final track on BeyoncĂ©âs new album, âRenaissance.â Summer became the queen of disco in the â70s, but her catalog goes much further than that. You can hear her legacy in decades of electronic and R&B. âShe is an architect of the pop culture we experience today,â J says.
In this episode, J and Wesley revisit her 1982 album, âDonna Summerâ â and explore why, out of all of her music, this self-titled album is the most distinctly Donna.
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J Wortham and Wesley Morris are back, just in time for Scorpio season. Ever since they watched Jordan Peeleâs latest film, âNope,â together over the summer, they havenât been able to stop talking about it. The film stars Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as siblings whose family horse ranch is threatened by an otherworldly creature. But instead of escaping or destroying the monster, they are determined to take a picture of it. Why is proof so important? And what does it mean to be believed?
Today: The unresolved questions of âNopeâ (some of them, anyway) and what the film says about the grimmer aspects of living in America. (Beware: Spoilers ahead!)
âStill Processingâ is back for a mini-season. New episodes on Tuesdays. Follow the show on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Reunited at last, J Wortham joins Wesley Morris in the studio for the last episode of the season. They reflect on the challenges of being apart for almost a year while J was on book leave.
How did J deal with the inevitable stretches of loneliness? How do you re-enter your home and your relationships after so much time away?
J and Wesley discuss how they managed to stay connected over the past year, and the role of community and intimacy in moments of tragedy.
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Today, Wesley leaves the studio â and goes home. He embarks on a journey that involves a car named Khad'ija, a tireless 92-year-old activist and one Chinatown. Last year, President Biden signed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law. One part of the initiative especially struck Wesley: the federal governmentâs acknowledgment that its mid-century push to build a massive highway system had caused suffering. Wesley started thinking about a highway that he sometimes crossed as a kid in Philadelphia: the Vine Street Expressway. When it was built in 1991, he never realized how deeply it had divided and altered the Chinatown neighborhood. What happened to all the people who were living there? How did their lives â and their communities â transform? On todayâs show, Wesley returns to his hometown to try to find out. Click here for photos of Wesley's journey and more info about the episode.
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"This Is How We Do It" by Montell Jordan is an unforgettable hip-hop relic, a jam whose opening six words alone make you want to party. Wesley has heard this 1995 hit countless times since he was a teenager, but it wasnât until hearing it recently at the gym that he had an epiphany: Itâs a country song. It belongs to a long tradition of country music that expresses love and respect for one's hometown.
Wesley explores other songs that have changed in meaning for him over the years (like âLosing My Religionâ by R.E.M.), and he considers what happens to musicâs meaning when the culture around it changes â the way it did with Britney Spears and her hits, in the aftermath of her yearslong struggle to end her court-sanctioned conservatorship.
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When Wesley was 11, he wanted to be just like Sandra from the sitcom â227,â played by JackĂ©e Harry. Sandra was sassy, boisterous and always got what she wanted. But it took reading Margo Jeffersonâs latest book, âConstructing a Nervous System: A Memoir,â for Wesley understand the complexity of this memory. On today's episode, Wesley and Margo Jefferson sift through their most deep-rooted, and sometimes difficult-to-explain cultural influences. Why did Margo adore the scatting of Ella Fitzgerald, but squirm at the sight of her sweating onstage? Why was Margo drawn to Ike Turner as a teen, but not Tina Turner? Together, Wesley and Margo unpack their cultural memories â and what they reveal about who they are now.
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What happens when athletes decide to act? And what doesnât happen? Wesley Morris and Bill Simmons, sportswriter and founder of The Ringer, break down the history of athletes in movies. They start with Jackie Robinson playing himself in 1950, discuss the Blaxpoitation-era stars and make their way to the â90s, from âHe Got Gameâ (where Ray Allen turns in a solid performance opposite Denzel Washington, directed by Spike Lee) to âSpace Jamâ (the less said, the better). They trace this phenomenon all the way to Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. The Rock, arguably the most successful athlete-turned-actor of all time â who seems to be playing the long game. Then, they imagine a new kind of renaissance for the sports movie.
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Wesley wants to get to the bottom of Keanu Reeves â and to understand âwhy we get so much out of a movie star who appears to give us so little.â Heâs joined by Alex Pappademas, the author of âKeanu Reeves: Most Triumphant: The Movies and Meaning of an Irrepressible Icon,â to solve this mystery. They discuss Keanuâs three-decade acting career, how he became the internetâs adorably tragic boyfriend and why we are seeing ourselves when we look at the actor.
Click here for more information about today's episode, and check out Alex's book on Keanu.
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"Fatal Attraction" came out in 1987 when Wesley was 11, and it made a permanent impression on the way he thinks about certain aspects of lust and suspense. With Jenna away on book leave, he welcomed Parul Sehgal, a staff writer at The New Yorker, to the show. Both Wesley and Parul watched âFatal Attractionâ over and over as preteens, and theyâve rewatched it multiple times in the years since. As they break down the most powerful scenes, they are reminded of the loss of high-stakes sex onscreen today. They discuss why the erotic thriller genre disappeared â and what they could gain from seeing more genuine, grown-up sex in movies.
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In the 20th century, method acting was everywhere. Actors went to extreme lengths to inhabit the complicated psyche of a character, sometimes making audiences deeply uncomfortable. Think Robert De Niro in âRaging Bullâ or Marlon Brando in âApocalypse Now.â But in 2022, in our heyday of superhero blockbusters and bingeable story lines, the Method seems to be fading away. Wesley invites Isaac Butler â critic, historian and author of âThe Method: How the 20th Century Learned to Actâ â to dissect the Method. They discuss where it came from, its most legendary practitioners, and whether Hollywood has a place for it today.
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Wesley worries the âskip introâ button is killing the TV theme song. He takes his concern to his friend Hanif Abdurraqib, a poet, music critic and MacArthur âgenius grantâ winner. Together, they explore their childhood memories of âGood Times,â âThe Wonder Yearsâ and âThe Jeffersons.â Then, producer Hans Buetow unearths a rendition of a theme song that blows their minds â and they vow never to hit âskip introâ on it.
We have a special request: Can you identify the choir that is singing the âGood Timesâ theme song in this video? Weâd love to find out who they are and get in touch with them. Email us at [email protected] if you have a lead. Click here for more details. Special prizes! Endless appreciation!
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Wesley has been obsessed with lists since he was a child â think Casey Kasemâs American Top 40, the Academy Awards and Rolling Stoneâs Top 500 Albums of All Time. Now, he wants to think more seriously about expanding what we call the canon, making sure more people have a say in which works of art are considered great, enduring and important.
For guidance, Wesley sits down with Daphne A. Brooks, an academic, critic and music lover, to ask whether expanding the canon is even the right way to think about this. Her thoughts surprise him: We can do better than lists!
Check out Daphne A. Brooks's reading recommendations at this link or at nytimes.com/stillprocessing.
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Weâre back with a new season on April 14! Jenna Wortham is on book leave, so Wesley Morris will be taking on solo hosting duties for much of this spring. He will be joined by a stellar cast of guests, including Daphne Brooks to talk pop culture hierarchies, Hanif Abdurraqib to examine television theme songs (and that polarizing âskip introâ button) and Bill Simmons on what happens when athletes try to act. We canât kick off this season, however, without first hearing about what Jenna has been up to. Spoiler alert: black holes.
Tune in Thursdays for new episodes.
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When the three opening notes of the song hit, thereâs only one thing to do: Find your people and dance. Today, weâre talking about âBefore I Let Go,â by Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, and the songâs unique ability to gather and galvanize. It wasnât a huge hit when it came out in 1981, but it has become a unifying Black anthem and an unfailing source of joy. We dissect BeyoncĂ©âs cover, and we hear from friends, listeners and the Philadelphia DJ Patty Jackson about their memories of the classic song.
You can find more info on today's episode here.
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A powerful â and revealing â aspect of the Derek Chauvin trial was the community it created out of strangers. Week later, weâre still thinking about the witnesses, and the way they were connected in telling the story of how George Floyd lost his life. This phenomenon is reflected in works of art, like Spike Leeâs âDo the Right Thing,â which explores the conflict inherent in a community.
You can find more info on today's episode here.
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Sheâs simply the best. A new documentary on HBO (called, simply, âTinaâ) explores Tina Turnerâs tremendous triumphs, but we wanted to go deeper. We talk about how her entire career was an act of repossession: Taking back her name, her voice, her image, her vitality and her spirituality made her one of the biggest rock stars in the world, even in her 50s.
You can find more info about today's episode here, and follow Wesleyâs playlist of his top Tina Turner songs.
Also, Jenna and Wesley want your help in settling a bet! Do you know the song âBefore I Let Goâ by Frankie Beverly and Maze? Did you play it at a party or dance to it at a wedding? Do you jump to your feet every time it comes on? Grab your phone and record yourself telling a story about what the song has meant to you. Send it to us at [email protected]
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