David Byrne’s American Utopia: A Sneak Preview of Spike Lee’s New Concert Film

in Music, Theatre | September 15th, 2020

First came the album and tour in 2018. Then the Broad­way show in 2019. And now the lat­est incar­na­tion of David Byrne’s Amer­i­can Utopia–the con­cert film direct­ed by Spike Lee. Debut­ing on HBO Max on Octo­ber 17th, this Spike Lee joint shows David Byrne “joined by an ensem­ble of 11 musi­cians, singers, and dancers from around the globe, invit­ing audi­ences into a joy­ous dream­world where human con­nec­tion, self-evo­lu­tion, and social jus­tice are para­mount.” If the movie is any­thing like the tour, it will be sub­lime. For now, we’ll whet your appetite with the sneak pre­view above.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Byrne Launch­es Rea­sons to Be Cheer­ful, an Online Mag­a­zine Fea­tur­ing Arti­cles by Byrne, Bri­an Eno & More

David Byrne Curates a Playlist of Great Protest Songs Writ­ten Over the Past 60 Years: Stream Them Online

David Byrne: How Archi­tec­ture Helped Music Evolve

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Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #53 Explores the Hamilton Phenomenon

in Music, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Theatre | July 23rd, 2020

Your hosts Eri­ca Spyres, Mark Lin­sen­may­er, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by Broad­way actor Sam Simahk (Carousel, The King and I, My Fair Lady) to dis­cuss this unique con­ver­gence of musi­cal the­ater, rap, and his­tor­i­cal dra­ma. Does Hamil­ton deserve its acco­lades? We cov­er the re-emer­gence of stage music as pop music, live vs. filmed vs. film-adapt­ed musi­cals, cre­ators star­ring in their shows, race-inclu­sive cast­ing, and the pol­i­tics sur­round­ing the show.

Some arti­cles we looked at includ­ed:

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion includ­ing Sam that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Lin-Manuel Miranda Breaks Down How He Wrote Hamilton’s Big Hit, “My Shot”

in Current Affairs, Music, Theatre | July 22nd, 2020

The cur­rent moment has forced the orig­i­nal cast and crew of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mas­sive hit musi­cal Hamil­ton to revis­it and reeval­u­ate the sto­ry it tells about America’s found­ing. As Miran­da him­self told The Root’s Ton­ja Renée Stid­hum, “All of these guys are com­plic­it in the bru­tal prac­tice of slav­ery, slav­ery is the third line of our show… that is just a pre­req­ui­site for the sto­ry we’re telling.” But he didn’t first set out to write his­to­ry. “Orig­i­nal­ly, this was a con­cept album. I want­ed to write a hip hop album, so I was nev­er pic­tur­ing the guys on the stat­ues that are being torn down right now. I was pic­tur­ing, ‘What are the voic­es that are best suit­ed to tell the sto­ry.’”

Debut­ing in more opti­mistic times, when the coun­try had its first Black pres­i­dent, Hamil­ton declared, says Leslie Odom, Jr. (who played Aaron Burr) that “if this his­to­ry belongs to all of us… then we’re going to take it and we’re going to say it and use our own words to tell it!” Con­tro­ver­sy and cri­tique aside, there’s no deny­ing Miranda’s tremen­dous gifts as a drama­tist and song­writer, on dis­play not only in Hamil­ton but in the Moana sound­track.

How does he do it? Rid­ing the wave of renewed Hamil­ton fan­dom after the Dis­ney release of the orig­i­nal cast film, Miran­da recent­ly sat down with Rot­ten Toma­toes to dis­cuss his process. When he gets to Hamil­ton, he gives us a detailed break­down of “My Shot,” which, he says, took him a year to write.

“It was not only writ­ing Hamil­ton’s ‘I want’ song,” says Miran­da, “although it cer­tain­ly is that. It was also prov­ing my the­sis that Hamilton’s intel­lect is what allows him to pro­pel through the nar­ra­tive of the sto­ry.” The play’s pro­tag­o­nist proves his intel­lec­tu­al wor­thi­ness by mas­ter­ing and mak­ing his own the styles of Miranda’s favorite rap­pers, from Big Pun to Jay Z to Big­gie to Mobb Deep. “I’m grab­bing from the influ­ences and pay­ing homage to those influ­ences. …I’m lit­er­al­ly call­ing on the ances­tors of this flow. …The ‘Whoah’ sec­tion, I’ll just say, is based on the AOL start­up sound because I want­ed it to feel like …his words are con­nect­ing with the world.”

Whether or not any of Hamil­ton’s younger view­ers have ever heard the AOL start­up sound, the detail reveals how Miranda’s mind works. His cre­ations emerge from a matrix of ref­er­ences and allu­sions, each one cho­sen for its spe­cif­ic rela­tion to the sto­ry. Many of these call­backs go over the audience’s heads, but they still have their intend­ed effect, cre­at­ing ten­sion in “the dens­est cou­plets that I could write,” Miran­da says. The mes­sage in “My Shot,” with­in the con­text of the musi­cal itself, is that “Hamil­ton is the future with­in this group of friends.” But the mes­sage of Hamil­ton has noth­ing to do with the 18th cen­tu­ry and every­thing to do with the 21st. Per­haps its most sub­ver­sive idea is that the high­est lead­er­ship in the U.S. might just as well look like Hamil­ton as Hamil­ton. See Miran­da and the Hamil­ton cast per­form “My Shot” at the White House just below.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Lin-Manuel Miran­da Per­form the Ear­li­est Ver­sion of Hamil­ton at the White House, Six Years Before the Play Hit the Broad­way Stage (2009)

A Whiskey-Fueled Lin-Manuel Miran­da Reimag­ines Hamil­ton as a Girl on Drunk His­to­ry

The Mup­pets Sing the First Act of Hamil­ton

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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The Muppets Sing the First & Second Acts of Hamilton

in Music, Theatre | July 12th, 2020

Or, at least it’s one fine impres­sion of the Mup­pets.

Here’s the cast and find Act II down below:

Alexan­der Hamil­ton — Ker­mit the Frog
Aaron Burr — The Great Gonzo
Eliza Schuyler — Miss Pig­gy
Mar­quis de LaFozette — Fozzie Bear
George Wash­ing­ton — Sam the Eagle
Angel­i­ca Schuyler — Camil­la the Chick­en
John Lau­rens — Beaker
Her­cules Mul­li­gan — Rowlf the Dog
King George III — Ani­mal
Peg­gy Schuyler — Jan­ice
Samuel Seabury — The Swedish Chef
Charles Lee — Elmo
Con­gres­sion­al Del­e­gates — Floyd and Zoot
Crazy Patri­ot — Crazy Har­ry
Statler and Wal­dorf — Them­selves

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hamil­ton Mania Inspires the Library of Con­gress to Put 12,000 Alexan­der Hamil­ton Doc­u­ments Online

Watch Lin-Manuel Miran­da Per­form the Ear­li­est Ver­sion of Hamil­ton at the White House, Six Years Before the Play Hit the Broad­way Stage (2009)

Lin-Manuel Miran­da & Emi­ly Blunt Take You Through 22 Clas­sic Musi­cals in 12 Min­utes

A Whiskey-Fueled Lin-Manuel Miran­da Reimag­ines Hamil­ton as a Girl on Drunk His­to­ry

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Watch Free Plays from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre: Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth & More

in K-12, Life, Literature, Theatre | April 28th, 2020

As depress­ing arti­cles about the upcom­ing Sum­mer of COVID-19 begin to pro­lif­er­ate, our hopes for beach days, con­cert series, and sum­mer camp begin to dim.

Here in New York City, the Pub­lic Theater’s announce­ment that it is can­celling the upcom­ing sea­son of its famed Shake­speare in the Park was met with under­stand­able sad­ness.

You don’t have to like Shake­speare to enjoy the rit­u­al of enter­ing Cen­tral Park short­ly after dawn, pre­pared to sit online for sev­er­al hours await­ing noon’s free tick­et dis­tri­b­u­tion, then return­ing to the Dela­corte lat­er that night with snacks and sweater and wine.

Per­form­ing a quick Inter­net search to brush up on the plot can enhance the expe­ri­ence, but—and I saw this as some­one whose degree includ­ed a met­ric heinieload of The Bard—it can be equal­ly sat­is­fy­ing to spend the final acts enjoy­ing an impromp­tu, al fres­co nap.

Bonus points if a rac­coon runs across the stage at some point.

Alas all this must be denied us in the sum­mer of 2020, but it’s still with­in our pow­er to repli­cate that sum­mer feel­ing in advance of the equinox, using the past pro­duc­tions that London’s Globe The­atre is screen­ing on its YouTube chan­nel as our start­ing place.

First up is Romeo & Juli­et from 2009, star­ring Ellie Kendrick and Adetomi­wa Edun, though accord­ing to the Inde­pen­dent’s Michael Coveney, the show belongs to Pen­ny Lay­den as the Nurse:

Far removed from the fuss­ing tra­di­tion of com­ic gar­ruli­ty and the Patri­cia Rout­ledge fac­tor, Lay­den plays her as a scrubbed, mid­dle-aged, sen­si­ble woman car­ry­ing a his­to­ry of sad­ness. The bawdy assault on her by Philip Cum­bus’s melan­choly Mer­cu­tio is both shock­ing and plau­si­ble, and she retains her qui­et dig­ni­ty while at the same time mourn­ing its sac­ri­fice.

Back to New York City…

Pri­or to start­ing your screen­ing, you’ll want to approx­i­mate a seat at the Dela­corte (which, like the Globe, is authen­ti­cal­ly cir­cu­lar in shape). I rec­om­mend a met­al fold­ing chair.

Sprin­kle a table­spoon or so of water onto the seat if you want to pre­tend it rained all after­noon lead­ing up to the per­for­mance.

Def­i­nite­ly have some wine to pour into a plas­tic cup.

Slather your­self in insect repel­lent.

Silence your cell phone.

If your housemate’s cell phone goes off mid-per­for­mance, feel free to tsk and sssh and roll your eyes. Hon­est­ly, how hard is it to com­ply with the famil­iar instruc­tions of the house manager’s speech?

At inter­mis­sion, stand out­side your own bath­room door for at least 15 min­utes before let­ting your­self into a “stall” to use the facil­i­ties.

Doze all you want to…. arrange for your house­mate to tsk and sssh at you from an appro­pri­ate dis­tance, should your snor­ing become audi­ble.

You have until Sun­day, May 3 to stum­ble sleep­i­ly away from the screen, and pre­tend you’re wan­der­ing to the sub­way with 1799 oth­er New York­ers.

Then make plans to wake up at 5:30 and sit on the floor with a ther­mos of cof­fee for sev­er­al hours, hop­ing that they won’t run out of tick­ets for The Two Noble Kins­men before you make it to the top of the line.

(Spoil­er alert: they won’t.)

Oth­ers in the Globe’s free series:

Mac­Beth, May 11 until UK schools reopen

The Winter’s Tale (2018), May 18 — May 31

The Mer­ry Wives of Wind­sor (2019), June 1 — June 14

A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream (2013), June 15 — 28

Click­ing the red “dis­cov­er more” lozenge beneath each show’s pho­to on the Globe Watch’s land­ing page will lead you to a wealth of sup­port­ing mate­ri­als, from pre-show chats with the Globe’s Post-Doc­tor­al Research Fel­low Will Tosh to pho­tos, arti­cles, and a stu­dent chal­lenge specif­i­cal­ly tai­lored to the times we find our­selves liv­ing through now.

Sub­scribe to the Globe’s YouTube chan­nel to receive reminders.

Donate to the Globe here.

Amer­i­cans can make a tax-deductible dona­tion to The Pub­lic The­ater here.

via My Mod­ern Met

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of Shakespeare’s Globe The­atre in Lon­don

A 68 Hour Playlist of Shakespeare’s Plays Being Per­formed by Great Actors: Giel­gud, McK­ellen & More

A Free Shake­speare Col­or­ing Book: While Away the Hours Col­or­ing in Illus­tra­tions of 35 Clas­sic Plays

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Depend­ing on how long this thing goes on, she may look into giv­ing Pen­ny Lay­den a run for the mon­ey by live-stream­ing her solo show, NURSE. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Watch Full Productions of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Musicals, Streaming Free for 48 Hours Every Weekend

in Music, Theatre | April 13th, 2020

Writer and the­ater­mak­er Nicholas Berger’s recent polemic, “The For­got­ten Art of Assem­bly: Or, Why The­atre Mak­ers Should Stop Mak­ing,” touched a whole plexus of nerves, by posit­ing that the fran­tic rush to approx­i­mate live per­for­mance in iso­la­tion, using non-broad­cast qual­i­ty home equip­ment and a live-stream­ing plat­form, is an imi­ta­tion so poor it should cease and desist.

Acknowl­edg­ing the scary eco­nom­ic real­i­ty that dri­ves many of these hasti­ly assem­bled online read­ings, solo shows, brand new 24-hour plays, mono­logues, and inex­pert­ly shot Off-Off-Broad­way footage did not get Berg­er a pass from the the­ater com­mu­ni­ty.

Nor did attempt­ing to head ‘em off at the pass by fret­ting that his “cyn­i­cism for this emer­gency style of dig­i­tal per­for­mance will be labeled as pes­simism or defeatism” and insist­ing that it’s his “love for the­atre that cringes when (he sees) it inch clos­er and clos­er to becom­ing a Tik­Tok.”

We acknowl­edge the like­li­hood that the gen­er­al pub­lic has as much appetite for this sort of the­ater com­mu­ni­ty infight­ing as it does for the bur­geon­ing Covid-19 era vir­tu­al the­ater scene, espe­cial­ly if the play­ers are unfa­mil­iar from film or TV.

Not so the free Andrew Lloyd Web­ber buf­fet being served up every week­end in the recent­ly hatched The Shows Must Go On YouTube chan­nel.

Here, the excel­lent pro­duc­tion val­ues, famous names, and brand name tunes add up to a gen­uine tele­vi­sion event, espe­cial­ly since each offer­ing sticks around just 48 hours before turn­ing back into a pump­kin.

You’ve already missed come­di­an Tim Minchin’s unfor­get­table street punk turn as Judas in 2012’s Jesus Christ Super­star, expert­ly filmed at London’s cav­ernous con­cert venue The O2. (Have a look at the above clip for a taste of what you missed—in addi­tion to the Victoria’s Secret-style angels and mega church-style light­ing dis­plays, this pro­duc­tion fea­tured pole danc­ing, Anony­mous masks, a for­mer Spice Girl, and a close enough Shep­ard Fairey trib­ute poster for a Jesus who won the cov­et­ed role in a TV tal­ent show.

Regret to inform, you’ve also missed for­mer teen idol Don­ny Osmond as the tit­u­lar char­ac­ter in the 1999 remount of Joseph and the Amaz­ing Tech­ni­col­or Dream­coat. (Or not, if Lloyd-Weber takes mer­cy on hoards of dev­as­tat­ed view­ers flock­ing to the YouTube com­ments sec­tion to beg him to air it again, hav­ing just dis­cov­ered that they missed it the first time.)

What’s next? You’ll have to ask the Mag­ic 8 ball, or wait for an announce­ment, though in the video below, Lloyd Web­ber pledges that his failed adap­ta­tion of author P.G. Wode­house’s beloved series, By Jeeves, will for sure be a fea­ture of the line up. Oth­er titles in his oeu­vre include Cats, Starlight Express, Sun­set Boule­vard, The Phan­tom of the Opera, and Evi­ta (the lat­ter with lyrics by Tim Rice, Lloyd Webber’s col­lab­o­ra­tor on Jesus Christ Super­star, Joseph and the Amaz­ing Tech­ni­col­or Dream­coat, and sev­er­al oth­er shows).

Each week’s fea­ture-length show streams free on YouTube for 48 hours, begin­ning at 2 PM EST.

As with much of the thrown-togeth­er pro­gram­ming Berg­er decries in “The For­got­ten Art of Assem­bly,” view­ers of these not-quite-live per­for­mances are encour­aged to cap things off with a dona­tion to a the­ater char­i­ty, with sug­gest­ed links for giv­ing in the US, the UK, and Aus­tralia.

For those who’ve nev­er caught an episode of Great Per­for­mances and thus find the con­cept of watch­ing taped the­ater “a bit of a head­fuck,” to quote Minchin, the advice he gave to Time Out (tem­porar­i­ly rebrand­ed as Time In) is:

You’ve just got to get through the first ten min­utes, and then it’s an extra­or­di­nary expe­ri­ence – because you’re actu­al­ly watch­ing peo­ple in real time.

Sub­scribe to The Shows Must Go On here.

#WithMe

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tim Minchin Presents “9 Rules to Live By” in a Fun­ny and Wise Com­mence­ment Speech (2013)

Sooth­ing, Uplift­ing Resources for Par­ents & Care­givers Stressed by the COVID-19 Cri­sis

Live Per­form­ers Now Stream­ing Shows, from their Homes to Yours: Neil Young, Cold­play, Broad­way Stars, Met­ro­pol­i­tan Operas & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Her unprompt­ed con­tri­bu­tion to the Off-Off-Broad­way in Iso­la­tion scene is a hasti­ly assem­bled trib­ute to the clas­sic 60s social line dance, The Madi­son. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Live Performers Now Streaming Shows, from their Homes to Yours: Neil Young, Coldplay, Broadway Stars, Metropolitan Operas & More

in Music, Theatre | March 18th, 2020

You’ve always read books in the com­fort of your own home. Though it may not be the full cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ence, you can also watch films there, in a pinch. Now that such a pinch has come, in the form of coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic-relat­ed quar­an­tines and oth­er forms of iso­la­tion, few art forms must be feel­ing it more than live music and the­atre. Though we’ve all watched record­ed per­for­mances now and again, we know full well that noth­ing can quite repli­cate the felt ener­gy of the live expe­ri­ence. Until we can get out and enjoy it once and again, a vari­ety of per­form­ers and venues — from rock stars and Broad­way lumi­nar­ies to inde­pen­dent the­atre com­pa­nies and the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera — have stepped up to pro­vide as much as they can of it online.

“The live music indus­try has seen an unprece­dent­ed fall­out in the wake of the coro­n­avirus out­break,” writes Con­se­quence of Sound’s Lake Schatz. “High­ly antic­i­pat­ed tours from Foo Fight­ers, Bil­lie Eil­ish, Thom Yorke, and Elton John have all been post­poned, and major fes­ti­vals such as Coachel­la and South By South­west have had to dras­ti­cal­ly change their plans last minute.”

In response, “artists are turn­ing to livestream­ing to stay in touch with their fans. Neil Young, Coldplay’s Chris Mar­tin, Death Cab for Cutie front­man Ben Gib­bard, and John Leg­end are stream­ing inti­mate con­certs live from their very own homes.” Young’s “Fire­side Ses­sions” launched on the Neil Young Archives site last Mon­day.

That same day Mar­tin, leader of Cold­play, “streamed a mini con­cert on Mon­day as part of Instagram’s ‘Togeth­er, at Home’ vir­tu­al series” (which will con­tin­ue next week with John Leg­end). Even more ambi­tious­ly, Gib­bard has a dai­ly stream­ing series set to launch next Tues­day on YouTube and Face­book. “Apt­ly titled ‘Live From Home,’ the dai­ly live ses­sions will see the indie rock­er take requests and even pos­si­bly duet with spe­cial guests,” writes Schatz. (You can view Gib­bard’s first Live from Home ses­sion at the top of the post.)

“Addi­tion­al­ly, punk rock­ers Jeff Rosen­stock and AJJ are both sched­uled to per­form a spe­cial con­cert that will be livestreamed on Spe­cial­ist Subject’s Insta­gram Sto­ries. That event goes down Tues­day after­noon begin­ning 7:45 p.m. ET.” Putting the show on by any tech­no­log­i­cal means avail­able is, we can sure­ly agree, very much the punk-rock way. And even apart from broad­cast­ing con­certs online, from home or else­where, “acts like Deaf­heav­en are releas­ing live albums (sans any audi­ence).” Deaf­haven, if you don’t know them, are a post-met­al band out of San Fran­cis­co; on the oth­er end of the musi­cal spec­trum, coun­try star Kei­th Urban streamed a live con­cert on Insta­gram from his base­ment this past Tues­day.

Over at the The­atre Devel­op­ment Fund (TDF), Raven Snook rounds up a vari­ety of New York the­atre insti­tu­tions now stream­ing online. These include 92nd Street Y (whose per­for­mance archive we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture); Broad­way­World, which has come up with “dai­ly Liv­ing Room Con­certs, a series of one-song per­for­mances record­ed by Broad­way stars in their respec­tive homes”; The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera, whose night­ly stream­ing of “pre­vi­ous­ly record­ed pre­sen­ta­tions” we men­tioned ear­li­er this week.

Oth­er par­tic­i­pants in this push include The Actors Fund, with its new “dai­ly performance/talk show Stars in the House” in which “Broad­way lumi­nar­ies will sing and chat from their homes,” and the Nation­al Yid­dish The­atre Folks­bi­ene, which “kicks off its Folks­bi­ene LIVE!: An Online Cel­e­bra­tion of Yid­dish Cul­ture” this week, all streamed free on its Face­book page. And be sure to vis­it the site of New York non-prof­it arts pre­sen­ter and pro­duc­er The Tank, whose new Cyber­Tank series live streams a “week­ly, remote, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary arts gath­er­ing” every Tues­day. What­ev­er your pre­ferred vari­ety of live per­for­mance, you’re sure to be cov­ered until you can get back out to the the­atre, the club, the opera hous­es, or wher­ev­er you enjoy your live cul­ture of choice.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Met Opera Stream­ing Free Operas Online to Get You Through COVID-19

92nd Street Y Launch­es a New Online Archive with 1,000 Record­ings of Lit­er­ary Read­ings, Musi­cal Per­for­mances & More

Use Your Time in Iso­la­tion to Learn Every­thing You’ve Always Want­ed To: Free Online Cours­es, Audio Books, eBooks, Movies, Col­or­ing Books & More

Relive 16 Hours of His­toric Live Aid Per­for­mances with These Big YouTube Playlists: Queen, Led Zep­pelin, Neil Young & Much More

Going to Con­certs and Expe­ri­enc­ing Live Music Can Make Us Health­i­er & Hap­pi­er, a New Psy­chol­o­gy Study Con­firms

Pink Floyd Films a Con­cert in an Emp­ty Audi­to­ri­um, Still Try­ing to Break Into the U.S. Charts (1970)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Actor Margaret Colin (VEEP, Independence Day) Joins Pretty Much Pop #28 to Take On the Trope of the Alpha Female

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television, Theatre | January 23rd, 2020

What’s the deal with images of pow­er­ful women in media? The trope of the tough-as-nails boss-lady who may or may not have a heart of gold has evolved a lot over the years, but it’s dif­fi­cult to por­tray such a char­ac­ter unob­jec­tion­ably, prob­a­bly due to those all-too-famil­iar dou­ble stan­dards about want­i­ng women in author­i­ty (or, say, run­ning for office) to be assertive but not astrin­gent.

Mar­garet was the female lead in major films includ­ing Inde­pen­dence Day and The Dev­il’s Own, is a main­stay on Broad­way, and has appeared on TV in many roles includ­ing the moth­er of the Gos­sip Girl and as an unscrupu­lous news­cast­er on the final sea­sons of VEEP. Her height and voice have made her a good fit for dom­i­nant-lady roles, and she leads Mark, Eri­ca, and Bri­an through a quick, instruc­tive tour through her work with male direc­tors (e.g. in a pre-Mur­phy-Brown Dianne Eng­lish sit-com), play­ing the lead in three Life­time Net­work movies, on Broad­way as Jack­ie, and oppo­site Har­ri­son Ford, Al Paci­no, Melanie Grif­fith, Michael Shan­non, Wal­lace Shawn, and oth­ers.

Giv­en the lim­i­ta­tions of short-form sto­ry­telling in film, maybe some use of stereo­types is just nec­es­sary to get the gist of a char­ac­ter out quick­ly, but actors can load their per­for­mances with unseen back­sto­ry. We hear about the actor’s role in estab­lish­ing a char­ac­ter vs. the vision of the film­mak­ers or show-run­ners. Also, the rel­a­tive con­ser­vatism of film vs. stage vs. TV in grant­i­ng women cre­ative con­trol, the “fem­i­nine voice,” why women always appar­ent­ly have to trip in movies when chased, and more.

A few resources to get you think­ing about this top­ic:

Some­one’s post­ed a tape of Carousel fea­tur­ing Eri­ca and Mar­garet.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.