Hello hello! There is so much good television coming out in the next month, I am honestly overwhelmed. No one talk to me, I am BUSY. Here’s a recap of my week:
Things I Read
Books
I am currently in the middle of…three…books so please hold for next week, by which I will hopefully have finished at least one of them.
Articles
Gabrielle Union: The Hard Truth About My Surrogacy Journey: I really admire Gabrielle Union and I think she is a great writer. This excerpt from her upcoming memoir about her fertility struggles is very vulnerable and extremely well written. I think it’s important that stories like this get told and that we all pay attention. The more people understand about pregnancy and fertility and motherhood, the better off we all will be. This is a good read.
10 Deaths, Exhausted Guards, Rampant Violence: Why Rikers Is in Crisis: Rikers Island is the main jail in New York City, and it should have been closed years ago. This place is horrific—rife with violence and abuse, widely recognized as one of the most dangerous jails in the country, and things have only gotten worse in the pandemic. This article describes the conditions at Rikers and explains why things have gotten as bad as they are. This is a humanitarian crisis and serious action needs to be taken to fix it as soon as possible. An important point from the article: the vast majority of people being held on Rikers have not been tried and are presumed innocent. Let them out.
The FBI’s handling of Larry Nassar’s sex abuse is awful – but sadly unsurprising: This week, Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, and Maggie Nichols testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about how Larry Nassar abused them and how the FBI failed, HORRIFICALLY, to do anything about it. It is worth watching their statements in full. Every time these women have to talk about this I feel enraged. The number of adults who failed so many children is just so insane. It took the FBI OVER A YEAR to take any meaningful action after first learning about Nassar’s abuse, and in that time he abused 70 more girls. The first time he was reported to law enforcement was in 2004. 2 0 0 4. Oh my god. This is a colossal failure on so many levels, and, as this article describes, sadly unsurprising. Law enforcement does not take sex crimes seriously, does not take victims who report abuses seriously, and does not seem to care to get any better at this either. I am mad!
Things I Watched
TV
LuLaRich: This was WILD. It’s a four-part documentary series about LuLaRoe, a multilevel marketing company that sells (hideous) clothes. The founders agreed to be interviewed in the documentary, which was so stupid and made them look terrible. MLMs are grossly predatory and purposely target vulnerable populations—in this case, stay at home moms looking to supplement their income. Multiple things in this made my jaw DROP. I wish they had talked more about the manufacturing of the clothes and also that they had featured people who were lower down on the pyramid. This twitter thread has a lot of great things to say. This is well worth a watch. On Amazon.
Impeachment: American Crime Story: There is so much good tv coming out in September, and this is one of my most anticipated shows. This is Ryan Murphy’s latest-- Beanie Feldstein plays Monica Lewinsky, and the rest of the cast is also very good. The one unfortunate choice is Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp, in a fat suit. There is simply no reason for anyone to be wearing a fat suit in the year 2021. Just cast a fat person. (Good article here on why this is bad). I thought the response Sarah gave in this interview was thoughtful—she said she would not make the same choice now. Two episodes of this are out so far, and I think its good. All of the women in this are very good, aside from the two main characters Annaleigh Ashford in particular is giving a great performance as Paula Jones. I am excited to see where this goes. Annoyingly, the only way to watch this is with on FX with cable, Hulu Live, or some kind of live streaming equivalent. Ryan Murphy has a Netflix exclusivity deal, which prevents this from going to Hulu like other FX shows usually do. Supposedly it will be streaming on Netflix next year.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine: This show ended this week and I have so many conflicting thoughts. I binged all of this at the beginning of quarantine last year and I really loved it. I thought it was funny and heartwarming at a time when everything was terrible. Then, after last summer, I really started to think more about how law enforcement is portrayed in pop culture. This is something I should have thought about much sooner, but I didn’t. And at this point, I just don’t really think anybody should be making a comedy show about law enforcement, let alone the NYPD specifically. They rewrote the last season after last summer, and they tried to reckon with a lot of the issues that have been talked about in the last year, but they also tried to be the funny comedic show this has always been. I’m not sure it worked. I thought this review was good—at the end of the day, this is a sitcom about police. That is just simply not a premise I am interested in watching anymore. The series finale aired this week, and I think it’s a good thing that this show has come to an end. I watched it on Hulu.
Movies
Worth: This was interesting. Michael Keaton plays Ken Feinberg, the lawyer who was the Special Master of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. In the wake of 9/11, the government was worried that the victims of the attack would be so litigious against the airline companies that it would effect the entire economy, so Congress created this victims compensation fund. Victims (or their surviving family members) would be compensated by the fund in exchange for an agreement not to sue. Ken Feinberg and his team were in charge of getting everyone to agree to that deal, and also deciding how much money each person would get. I didn’t know anything about how this process worked and I learned a lot, but I think I net out at this movie just being fine. It is very reminiscent of Spotlight in vibe (along with Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci is in both movies as well), and Spotlight is just way better. This mostly made me want to watch that. On Netflix.
Things I Bought
Supergoop sale: 20% off site wide until 9/21! My favorites are Unseen Sunscreen and Glowscreen. I bought these lip shields to try. Summer may be over but the sun still exists. Wear sunscreen!!!
One Last Thing…
I am very interested in the Elizabeth Holmes trial. I read Bad Blood and watched the HBO documentary, and I’m very interested to see how all of this plays out. I was listening to Bad Blood: The Final Chapter, the podcast John Carreyrou (who wrote the book) is doing, but then I realized that the episodes where he actually talks about the trial are behind a paywall. I am not about to pay to listen to a podcast, and I’m certainly not about to pay for one that is only on Apple Podcasts, the *worst* podcast app (I use Overcast). Anyway, I switched and am now listening to The Drop Out: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial, and it’s very good. I have no idea how this is going to end.
That’s it for me! The Emmys are on Sunday and I will obviously be watching. If anyone from Hamilton wins a ***Television Academy Award*** for a (probably very good, but that’s not the point!) performance they gave in a ***staged musical*** that was filmed and released exclusively on a streaming service, I will be suing. I hope you all have a good week!
TTYL,
Emily