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Posted inFeature

How Wednesday Addams Birthed a Generation of Cynics

by Emily Alford November 23, 2022November 23, 2022

Emily Alford | Longreads | November 23, 2022 | 8 minutes (2,132 words) Midway through 1991’s The Addams Family, young Wednesday Addams attempts to supplement her family’s lost fortunes by selling poison lemonade for a nickel. Not everyone’s a willing customer. “I only like all-natural foods and beverages, organically grown with no preservatives,” a perky […]

Posted inNonfiction

‘We Deserve So Much More Than Police, Prisons, and Jails’: Scalawag Takes On Emmy-Winning Television

by Cheri Lucas Rowlands September 15, 2022October 21, 2022

We recommend these incisive essays on Abbott Elementary, The White Lotus, and The Dropout in Scalawag’s series on pop culture and justice.

An empty chair sits in a room against a purple wall
Posted inNonfiction

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

by Longreads July 8, 2022January 25, 2023

This week, our editors recommend notable features and essays by Katie Barnes, Rachel Handler, Alex Hawkins, Lila Shapiro, and Raksha Vasudevan.

Posted inEditor's Pick

Nathan Fielder Is Out of His Mind (and Inside Yours)

by Peter Rubin July 5, 2022January 25, 2023

On the axis of cringe comedy, Nathan Fielder’s work on TV series Nathan For You ranks somewhere between Sasha Baron Cohen and Covering Your Eyes and Ears to Escape the Vicarious Embarrassment. But Lila Shapiro’s profile, coming just ahead of Fielder’s return to television, attempts to peel back the layers of artifice between man and world. […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

Every Language Everywhere All at Once

by Cheri Lucas Rowlands June 8, 2022October 19, 2022

As our choices for films and television shows made around the world increase in the streaming era, so do the challenges of translation. Rafael Motamayor explores the art — and complicated process — of translating foreign content for international viewers. We are far removed from the days of flagrant cultural erasure through dubbing — Pokémon […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

How ‘Sex and the City’ Sent Me Down a Fake Baseball Rabbit Hole

by Peter Rubin February 21, 2022October 19, 2022

“Lots of shows and movies include snippets of fake sports broadcasts as background noise. Yet this one had sounded conspicuously real. Instead of simply rattling off a score, the broadcast had included just the right level of specificity, all the textured banality of a random at bat. There seemed to be a whole booth involved […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

On “Succession,” Jeremy Strong Doesn’t Get the Joke

by Peter Rubin December 6, 2021January 25, 2023

When I told Strong that I, too, thought of the show as a dark comedy, he looked at me with incomprehension and asked, “In the sense that, like, Chekhov is comedy?” No, I said, in the sense that it’s funny. “That’s exactly why we cast Jeremy in that role,” McKay told me. “Because he’s not […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

What Mr. Miyagi Taught Me About Anti-Asian Racism in America

by Cheri Lucas Rowlands March 23, 2021October 19, 2022

In The Karate Kid franchise, writes Beth Nguyen, “Mr. Miyagi is the perpetual foreigner who exists to serve the whiteness that surrounds him.”

Posted inEditor's Pick

The Oral History of CNN’s Election Week

by Cheri Lucas Rowlands November 18, 2020October 19, 2022

“It took office naps, rousing renditions of Motownphilly, and a whole lot of coffee.”

Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story

The World’s Tallest Dwarf

by Sara Fredman November 8, 2019January 13, 2023

Late capitalism gets an antihero show.

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