On Choosing Better Idols Next Time

Plus: 'The Sopranos,' 'The Many Saints Of Newark,' and What Is Making Us Happy

View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when Scarlett Johansson and Disney settled their differences. It was the week when Daniel Craig learned about his meme. And it was the week when Jon Stewart came back. Let's get to it.  Opening Argument: On Choosing Better Idols Next Time Most of you probably know I published a novel a couple of years ago, and there is a passage in it about the term "the go sign," and what happens if "the go sign" is saying "go." It loops around in a kind of lazy and echoing way that anybody who's watched a lot of pop culture in the last 20 years will easily identify as very nearly Aaron Sorkin pastiche.  While a lot of Sorkin people came to him via The West Wing, I was a Sports Night person, and before that, I was an A Few Good Men person and a The American President person. It wasn't as much because I gravitated to his brand of idealism; it was for the same reason I love Cole Porter and Tom Lehrer -- it's the same reason I was a fan in my teenage years of the romantic comedy Moonlighting: I like trick-filled, show-offy, rhythmic work with words. And at that time, I would have classified Sorkin as a screenwriting hero: the person whose stuff I could always watch. The person whose dialogue I would love to be able to match. But I started to sour on him during even his part of the run of The West Wing, then I thought Studio 60 was a misfire, then I hated The Newsroom, and the party was well and truly over, creatively. I was still always curious, always -- even up to the time a couple of years ago when I saw his Broadway version of To Kill A Mockingbird -- but these stories would come out about addressing women as "internet girl" and I would remember some really bad habits I knew he had (because I was such a fan, I was also a pretty decent mental archivist), and I would feel worse and worse about this attachment, but I was hesitant to entirely give it up. Cut to yesterday, when an interview came out in Vanity Fair about Sorkin's long association with producer Scott Rudin. While the initial reaction from a lot of corners was to be impressed with the way he said Rudin "got what he deserved," if you actually read the whole thing, it's pretty bizarre. Sorkin claims to have never known about abuse Rudin heaped on people that's now been reported in a number of places; he draws a weird sharp line between being abusive in the workplace generally and being abusive physically; he repeatedly emphasizes that he was most upset because the people Rudin was allegedly mistreating were working on his projects; and more. I cannot really improve upon the thread my friend (and the great journalist and dragonslayer) Maureen Ryan offered, so I'll just offer it along to you.  So much has been said about separating the art from the artist in situations where the artist himself is guilty of crimes and abuse, but it's also a pretty rude awakening to just realize that ... you should have been taking your cues from different people. I certainly knew that I didn't like how Sorkin wrote women a lot of the time; I could have known it even more if I'd been applying higher standards in the early '90s, which I wish I'd known I could. I didn't entirely quit him after "internet girl," and now I ask myself ... why? Why didn't I? I made fun of it, I rolled my eyes at it, but I went to his play on Broadway, even though I knew it seemed like a piece he would likely mishandle -- which it was.  Your old heroes are sometimes a catalog of the limitations you had when you came to treat them as such; maybe giving up on those heroes is a natural result of working to outgrow those limitations. It doesn't mean I don't like individual things about the work; I'm always going to admire that kind of dialogue and admire the way he writes it. But you're never too old to resolve that you're going to choose better idols next time. Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend: The Netflix series Maid is out this weekend, starring Margaret Qualley -- and as her mother, Qualley's actual mother, Andie MacDowell. It's one of my favorite shows of the year, and we'll be talking about it on the podcast soon.  Mara Gay wrote this week about the New York City COVID experience, and it's worth a read. I am extremely late to Tatum the Talking Dog on TikTok, but that doesn't mean I don't wait for his every adventure.  And by the way, yes, we are going to be covering the extremely buzzy Netflix series Squid Game! You'll have some time to watch it before we talk about it, which is good with something so chatted-about. Also on the docket: Impeachment: American Crime Story and Y: The Last Man, so if you're looking for things to check out, those are a few that we'll be getting to soon-ish! What We Did This Week: HBO/Kobal/Shutterstock On Monday, we were able to share interviews with Isabel Allende and Sandra Cisneros that come to you from our friends at Alt.Latino.  Later on Monday, Glen and Aisha recapped the Tony Awards.   On Wednesday, Bilal Qureshi and I talked about the HBO remake of Scenes From A Marriage.  On Thursday, Aisha and Glen and Shea Vassar talked about The Sopranos.  And on Friday, Sopranos completist Alan Sepinwall joined Glen, Aisha and me to talk about the new prequel film The Many Saints Of Newark. I recapped a new episode of Ted Lasso that made me a little nervous, and I recapped an episode of The Morning Show that's got kissing and lying and really, why can't they all just be monsters?  And if you like recaps, I should note that you can find all the Ted Lasso recaps and all the Morning Show recaps on their own pages!  Stephen wrote about "Wasted Days," a song from Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp. What's Making Us Happy Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: What's making Aisha happy: Wesley Lowery's Will Smith profile in GQ What's making Glen happy: Jack Whitehall: Travels With My Father What's making Alan happy: The Turnout by Megan Abbott What's making Linda happy: Sohla El-Waylly's NYT Cooking series Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from KVCR (edit station). What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: pchh@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Pop Culture Happy Hour emails. 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