Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 36

Hairspray’s Revealing Portrayal of Racism in America

In December 1963, producers at Baltimore’s WJZ-TV cancelled the Buddy Deane Show rather than integrate the popular teen dance program. This move would have been a footnote in the annals of television if not for the director and Baltimore native John Waters, whose 1988 film Hairspray offered up an alternate history, with its fictional Corny Collins Show and rose-tinted, let’s-all-dance-together ending. Hairspray, which started as a camp film with a modest $2.7 million budget, grew into a popular and commercially successful Broadway musical and movie. On Wednesday, NBC is broadcasting Hairspray Live! as its newest live-television musical adaptation.

Hairspray is firmly rooted in 1960s America, but it offers both sophisticated and (tellingly) simplistic ways of understanding racism today. On the one hand, the story’s feel-good conclusion implies that colorblindness is the silver bullet that ends racial discrimination, that good intentions and individual acts of bravery are enough to bring about harmony. On the other, Hairspray Live! has the chance to resurface a forgotten history of how discrimination in pop culture intimately shaped the lives of young people 50 years ago.

From 1957 to 1963, only white teens were allowed to attend the weekday broadcasts of the Buddy Deane Show, with the exception of one Monday each month when black teenagers filled the studio (the so-called “Black Monday”). In 1963, the Civic Interest Group, an student integrationist group founded at Morgan State University, challenged this policy by obtaining tickets for black and white teens to attend the show on a day reserved for black teenagers. After a surprise interracial broadcast, WJZ-TV received bomb and arson threats, hate mail, and complaints from white parents. Facing controversy over the possibility of more integrated broadcasts, the station canceled the program.

A devoted fan of the Buddy Deane Show, Waters drew on this history to write and direct the original film version of Hairspray. Unlike the tensions that followed the real integration of the Buddy Deane Show, Waters’s Hairspray ends with the protesters triumphing. The television news reporter covering the Corny Collins Show in the film sums up the climactic scene: “You’re seeing history being made today. Black and white together on local TV. The Corny Collins Show is now integrated!” Waters himself commented on the film’s revisionist history, “I gave it a happy ending that it didn’t have.”

Hairspray’s happy ending gave the story an arc that appealed to Broadway and Hollywood producers. NBC’s Hairspray Live! maintains the basic of Waters’s story, but like the Broadway version and musical film, it features more than a dozen songs that help to convey the hopeful narrative. “You Can’t Stop the Beat,” for example, is an upbeat dance number that resolves the issue of segregation on the Corny Collins Show. “What’s great about the choreography in [“You Can’t Stop the Beat”] is that, subtly, the black dancers and the white dancers have the same choreography,” the executive producer Neil Meron said in the DVD commentary for the 2007 film. “All the choreography in the movie prior to this was segregated by race, and now it’s all together, which is a very, very subtle reference to the theme of this movie.”

Hairspray’s history of race in America suggests that racism is an issue of attitudes rather than policies.

This sentiment carries through to the song’s lyrics. Motormouth Maybelle, a fictional black deejay and civil-rights activist played in the NBC version by Jennifer Hudson, sings: “You can’t stop today as it comes speeding down the track / Child, yesterday is history and it’s never coming back / ’Cause tomorrow is a brand new day and it don’t know white from black.” In the film’s narrative, this utopian vision of a colorblind future solves the problem of segregation and racial injustice.

The Hairspray Live! producers hope this story of interracial unity will be appealing to television audiences in 2016. “People already were excited about it, but after the election they were saying, ‘Boy, do we need this now,’” Meron said while promoting the new television musical.  With the nation in a “divisive place,” he argued, viewers are looking for entertainment “that can be really healing.” The New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani saw a similar dynamic at play when Hairspray, the musical, debuting shortly after 9/11, won over fans: “Hollywood and Broadway producers have decided [what] Americans want is nostalgia—the logic being that people in times of trouble will gravitate toward comfort entertainment that reminds them of simpler, happier times [such as]… the candy-colored Broadway musical Hairspray.’”

Hairspray’s history of race in America suggests that racism is an issue of attitudes rather than of policies. In its version of 1960s Baltimore, teenagers sing and dance their way past race. The story also locates racial prejudice in a single character, Velma Von Tussle (played in the live musical by Kristin Chenoweth), which enables the other white characters to remain largely innocent bystanders to the discrimination faced by the program’s black teenagers. It suggests a way of understanding race that allows viewers to disavow bigotry—framed in the story as the belief that white and black Americans should live in separate spheres—without acknowledging, confronting, or seeking to overturn the actual structures of discrimination. This sort of nearsighted, if not disingenuous, framing persists today, whether in affluent parents in New York City insisting their opposition to school rezoning proposals is not about race, or in arguments suggesting that the best way to address racism is to stop accusing people of being “racists.”

Perhaps the last thing 2016 needs is a star-studded musical endorsement of colorblindness.

Still, as an historian of the television era that Hairspray so lovingly recreates, I believe the story also presents a more nuanced vision of how popular culture helped to educate white and black teenagers about racial hierarchies. Seeing Hairspray as more than simply a post-racial American fantasy requires taking the story’s teen dance show setting seriously. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to what it meant for young black people to be excluded from entertainment spaces like the Buddy Deane Show. In a long list of reasons why “we find it difficult to wait” for freedom, King writes:

When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky … then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

King’s mention of “Funtown” is preceded by references to lynch mobs, police brutality, and the “airtight cage of poverty,” and followed by references to hotel segregation and racial slurs. The “Funtown” reference is powerful because it captures one of the ways that Jim Crow segregation and white supremacy played out for children and teenagers. For many young people, being blocked from swimming pools, skating rinks, or dance shows like the Buddy Deane Show would be one of their first exposures to what King calls the feeling of “forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness.’”

The Buddy Deane Show was a highly visible regional program that asserted a racially segregated public culture. And it was not unique: Dick Reid’s Record Hop in Charleston, West Virginia; Ginny Pace’s Saturday Hop in Houston, Texas; John Dixon’s Dixon on Disc in Mobile, Alabama; Bill Sanders’s show in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Dewey Phillips’s Pop Shop in Memphis, Tennessee; and Chuck Allen’s Teen Tempo in Jackson, Mississippi, were all segregated dance shows. In Little Rock, white teens went from protesting integration at Central High School to dancing in the afternoon on Steve’s Show. Nationally, American Bandstand blocked black teens from entering the studio during its years in Philadelphia, despite host Dick Clark’s claims to the contrary. Every weekday afternoon, in each of these broadcast markets, these shows presented images of exclusively white dancers and rendered black youth as second-class teenagers. This discrimination was explicitly or tacitly supported by an array of advertisers, television stations, music producers, city authorities, and federal communications officials.

By representing this reality—in bubble-gum, technicolor clarity—Hairspray does something that pure documentation, at times, can’t: It makes a difficult part of a nation’s history accessible (and entertaining) to millions of viewers. Hairspray encourages its audience to take the fight to integrate a teenage TV show seriously, but it does so through songs, dances, and costumes that celebrate and satirize the ’60s. The film’s executive producer Craig Zadan argued that what makes Hairspray work is, “you never feel like we’re on a soap box, or we’re preaching to you, or we’re saying this is a lesson you need to learn ... and yet, hopefully, you come away from it with something serious to talk about afterwards.” There is no guarantee that viewers will take up these discussions, but Hairspray offers plenty of material for those who choose to do so.

Perhaps the last thing 2016 needs is a star-studded, light-hearted musical endorsement of colorblindness—though, viewed holistically, Hairspray is more than that. Its fairly neat, commercialized, and revisionist portrayal of 1960s Baltimore sharply contrasts with the current messy, national discussion of identity politics—a disjunction that could prompt new audiences to reevaluate their assumptions about how racism operates. But Hairspray also resonates for at least one of the same reasons it did in the ’80s: It shows how seemingly innocent moments in popular culture were also sites of struggle over who was worthy of being a counted as a somebody in America.

There's Still No Trump Pivot

The Trump pivot is the Bigfoot of politics in 2016: often spotted, never verified. Yet despite warnings—from Mark Leibovich, from S.E. Cupp, from Jonathan Chait—the temptation to stake a claim as the genuine discoverer of the mythical Trump pivot remains powerful.

Now there’s another chance. Here’s Trump, meeting with Al Gore. Here’s Trump, saying maybe torture isn’t a tremendous idea. Here’s Trump, telling Time that he wants to find an accommodation for DREAMers, the unauthorized immigrants brought here as children and raised in the United States.

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President Trump’s Perpetual Campaign

So with an eye toward recent history, here’s some advice: Don’t be tempted.

Take the Gore meeting. There’s no good way to know what motivated the summit, which was arranged by Ivanka Trump. Gore gave a tight-lipped statement when he emerged. Whatever the point of the meeting, as Robinson Meyer notes, the balance of Trump’s statements and his concrete actions on climate change point in a clear direction. There are his repeated claims that climate change is a Chinese hoax, and there is his appointment of Myron Ebell, an outright denier of global warming, to head his EPA transition team.

What about the torture question? This one came out of Trump’s interview at The New York Times, but it’s actually much less than has been reported. Trump was asked whether he still supported torture, and he described a meeting with General James Mattis, who he on Tuesday nominated as secretary of defense. Here’s the transcript:

I said, what do you think of waterboarding? He said—I was surprised—he said, ‘I’ve never found it to be useful.’ He said, ‘I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture.’ And I was very impressed by that answer. I was surprised, because he’s known as being like the toughest guy. And when he said that, I’m not saying it changed my mind. Look, we have people that are chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages and we’re not allowed to waterboard. But I’ll tell you what, I was impressed by that answer. It certainly does not—it’s not going to make the kind of a difference that maybe a lot of people think. If it’s so important to the American people, I would go for it.

In other words, he’s not really backing off. To summarize, Trump now thinks maybe torture doesn’t work, but he hasn’t changed his mind and will happily yield to his interpretation of political exigency. Of course, why might some Americans think torture was effective? It could be because the man who won the presidential election spent months saying things like, “Torture works, okay folks? … Believe me, it works.”

Trump’s comments about DREAMers came in an interview for an award you should otherwise ignore.“We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud,” Trump told Michael Scherer, with typical vagueness. “They got brought here at a very young age, they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

That last phrase is marvelously disingenuous: They don’t know what’s going to happen because Trump has promised to withdraw executive orders, put in place by President Obama, that settled their status.

Despite making his hardline immigration stance the centerpiece of his campaign, Trump has floated this kind of softening before. In late August, he seemed unsure of his own stance, suggesting he might be open to allowing some unauthorized immigrants to remain. Several days later, after harsh backlash, he reversed course and re-adopted his old position: Throw ’em all out.

Since his election, Trump has offered more conflicting stances. On immigration issues, Trump has met with Kris Kobach, a hardliner who is Kansas secretary of state. But allowing DREAMers to stay might actually be one area where Trump will follow through. The reason is not that there’s proof of a change of heart; his August episode suggests he’s never been totally decided. Rather, that’s because it has always seem unlikely he would really follow through on deporting all unauthorized immigrants. Doing so would be extremely expensive, logistically nearly impossible, and politically unpopular.

There are a few possibilities that seem more likely than a pivot on Trump’s part. One is his oft-noted tendency to parrot whatever the last thing he’s heard is, as in the case of Mattis criticizing torture. Another is that he is happy to sow uncertainty, taking both sides of an issue in order to appear more open and flexible than he is. One lesson he must have learned from the campaign is that there’s seldom any penalty when he flatly contradicts himself and his former, or even contemporary, statements.

Meanwhile, his Cabinet picks so far suggest little in the way of a pivot. As David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, told Politico, it is “the most conservative since Reagan.” Appointments include Senator Jeff Sessions, a longtime backer and adviser, as attorney general; Ben Carson, who has no experience in housing or policy, as secretary of housing and urban development; Michael Flynn, a proud Islamophobe, as national security adviser; and Representative Tom Price, a strongly conservative critic of health-care reform, as secretary of health and human services. Several spots remain open, including secretary of state, which could head in a radical direction (e.g., Rudy Giuliani) or a much more mainstream one (e.g., David Petraeus).

Trump’s appointments of Steven Mnuchin as secretary of the treasury and Wilbur Ross as secretary of commerce, as well as meetings with Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, reportedly about the Office of Management and Budget, have raised eyebrows and some hackles among Trump supporters, but they should come as little surprise to anyone who followed the campaign; Ross was a top backer and adviser, and Mnuchin told BusinessWeek more or less outright in August that he would have a spot in Trump’s cabinet.

With the exception of Flynn, Trump’s appointments of and meetings with generals have suggested a pivot to some observers. In addition to his meetings with Petraeus, Trump has named retired General James Mattis as secretary of defense and General James Kelly as secretary of homeland security. But to view these as softening is to view them along the wrong axis. They may be surprisingly experienced and competent, especially compared to some of other nominees and rumored candidates, but both of them take hard lines on key issues.

Trump’s presidential campaign provided ample proof that not only was he not going to pivot, but he didn’t need to do so to be politically successful. Unless and until he starts experiencing some political setbacks, why would he do so now? Bigfoot still isn’t real.

Shut Eye Wants to Be Breaking Bad, With Psychics

In Shut Eye, a new series premiering in its entirety on Hulu Wednesday, nothing’s as straightforward as it initially seems. That much is clear in the first episode, when Charlie Haverford (Jeffrey Donovan), a genial “psychic” and low-rent conman, gives a reading to a client, Eduardo, who says he works in packaging, and is deeply upset by his son’s medical issues. Charlie’s patter hoodwinks Eduardo in a way that seems unconscionably cruel, until Charlie’s wife (KaDee Strickland) sidles over at the end of the session. “The only thing that man packages is cocaine and body parts,” she murmurs. “Just be careful.”

Shut Eye, set in the seedy and apparently violent world of Los Angeles clairvoyants, is based on a simple premise: A fake psychic suffers a head injury that somehow grants him real visions of things that are about to happen. But the show, created by Les Bohem, and executive produced by Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein (Breaking Bad, Rectify) complicates that setup with endless subplots involving nuclear families, Roma crime bosses, wacky neurologists, drug-pushing hypnotists, angsty teenagers, and Isabella Rossellini.

What helps is that Shut Eye’s journey into this particular underworld is well-researched and full of tricks. At its best, the show mimics the stylized visuals, outlandish violence, and comic cynicism of early episodes of Breaking Bad—though, so far, it lacks the clarity and the focus to make its story half as thoughtful. The show’s central figures are almost universally awful, which makes rooting for their criminal success more of a challenge. And while the cast is loaded with accomplished character actors who are a treat to watch, Charlie’s personal crisis often gets short shrift amid the dense layers of cons and countercons. ​​​​​​

Donovan, for his part, makes Charlie more sympathetic and complex than the character’s history—as someone who’s always taken the easiest option, ethics be damned—might seem to allow. He’s a failed magician whose attempts to launch a fleet of storefront psychics backfired when he stepped on turf controlled by Fonzo (Angus Sampson), a nauseating caricature of a gangster who uses his Roma heritage to run parlor tricks all over the city. In the first few episodes, Charlie seems wearily downtrodden, dominated both by Fonzo and by his wife, Linda, a savvy and hyper-ambitious former stripper frustrated by their stalled success.

When Linda, working magic tricks at a soiree for bored housewives, meets a wealthy woman who seems like an easy mark, she persuades Charlie that they should execute the con themselves rather than feed it up the chain to Fonzo, as protocol dictates. But the situation is complicated by Charlie’s head injury, which happens midway through the first episode when he’s beaten up by the jealous boyfriend of a client. Charlie begins experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations, many of which seem to predict events before they happen. “Time is out of joint,” he poetically tells his neurologist (Susan Misner), an unorthodox type who prescribes psilocybin to get to the root of may have broken his brain. But she also suggests that his psyche might be rebelling against what he’s become, and is using his brain injury to suggest other options.

Psychics, like drug dealers or even lawyers, are rich terrain for a drama about the darkness of human greed.

Shut Eye sometimes feels like a superhero origin story: Will Charlie decide to tap into his powers for good or for evil? But it also flips somersaults trying to be a crime drama, a family saga, and a deep dive into an unscrupulous industry. Its examination of storefront psychics, the tricks they pull, and the syndicates they work for is well-written and often surprising, especially given the human impulses at play. “People are looking for a pilot,” is how an unexpectedly sagacious high-school sophomore sums up the desire to have someone else find meaning in your life for you. “Is a psychic like a therapist?” one of Charlie’s clients asks later. It’s a rich universe to examine, and one with seemingly endless dramatic potential.

The problem is that Shut Eye doesn’t seem entirely convinced of its own ethical standpoint, and it impels viewers to play along while its antiheroes and heroines engage in joyfully amoral schemes. Some characters are more thoughtfully drawn than others—Rossellini’s Roma matriarch is two-dimensionally cruel, while Emmanuelle Chriqui’s huckster hypnotist seems to exist solely to have a skeezily gratuitous sexual relationship with Linda. Strickland, meanwhile, is fascinating playing someone who apparently has no moral compass whatsoever. Donovan skillfully communicates Charlie’s pusillanimity, as well as his discomfort with some of the more violent acts inflicted under his watch, but he’s less persuasive as Charlie heads toward darker waters. If anything, the central conceit of his brain injury needlessly complicates matters. Psychics, like drug dealers or even lawyers, are rich terrain for a drama about the darkness of human greed. This is no business for a superhero.

Joe Biden Goes on the Late Show, Plays Everyone’s Dad

The joke (well, one of the jokes) about Joe Biden is that he’s a kid trapped in the body of a 74-year-old. All those memes that sprang up after the election—Joe, disbelieving; Joe, petulant; Joe, with his mischievous plans to prank the incoming administration—had fun with the idea that the vice president, despite his age and his governmental experience, also represents the kid in all of us. Who among us wouldn’t rather be, instead of whatever sad thing we’re doing right now, gleefully consuming some ice cream?

It’s a joke that found another permutation on Tuesday night, during Biden’s appearance on the Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The spot was the vice president’s first television appearance since the presidential election, and its interview portion contained much of the conversation you’d expect—about the election’s outcome (“I’ve been in a closet since then,” Biden joked), about whether he’d consider running in 2020 (definitely! not at all! maybe!), about the cancer moonshot he has been working on in memory of his son, Beau. Before all that conventionality, though, Biden’s appearance featured a sketch that poked fun at all those Man-Child Biden jokes by reversing them: It featured Biden, along with Colbert, playing a kind of national dad.

The set-up: Biden and Colbert, father figures in the vague manner of Mr. Rogers—dad-sweaters and all!—had convened the nation for a family meeting.

The sketch—it took the same, pseudo-fictional style as the ones Colbert did with Michelle Obama, and with Mel Gibson—takes its own, and its audience’s, partisanship for granted: It’s premised on the idea that the country has been misbehaving, and assumes that the people fit to chastise it for its shortcomings are Stephen Colbert and Joe Biden.

“Hey champ, how’re you doing?” the be-sweatered Biden asked the audience, and, by extension, the country.

“Look, Pops and I, we’ve been worried about all these sudden changes,” Colbert said (this was a tag-teamed family meeting). “We know that you’re worried about the changes the family’s going through.” Biden continued: “It happens to every family, but I’m telling you, this terrible feeling you’re having right now, it isn’t permanent.” He paused. “It’ll be over in four years, maybe eight.”

But it’s not just the open partisanship. The sketch seems to take for granted something else, too: that the Biden of The Onion and of the memes is no longer the Biden audiences, within the Ed Sullivan Theater and far beyond its walls, most want right now. That the time for jokes is over. Instead, the sketch figures, what disappointed Democrats really want—really need—in this moment is a dad, in the most figurative sense: a steady presence, a compassionate guide, a legitimate authority. The ice-cream eating was fun while it lasted, the Late Show is suggesting, but at some point we all—even, and especially, a 74-year-old grandfather—have to grow up.

2016 Holiday Gift Guide

There should be a word for it—the agony of loving someone, or feeling familially obligated to them, and having no idea what to buy them as the next gift-giving occasion draws near. Liebengeschenkenschmerz? We’ll workshop it.

Even if you’re a winter-holiday fanatic, that anxiety can put a damper on seasonal festivity. So, for the second year in a row, we set out to help, with a different take on the traditional gift guide. Last month, we put out a call to Atlantic readers to describe the person on their shopping list who’s the most difficult to buy for. We picked 15 across the spectra of relationship, age, gender, and location, and a collection of Atlantic staffers buckled down to brainstorm some fitting gift ideas. (Note: The descriptions from readers, in italics below, have been edited lightly for style and clarity.) Maybe one of our suggestions will suit the impossible someone on your list, or otherwise inspire some gift-giving greatness.

***

eBoy

The Social-Butterfly Daughters

Age: 11, 15, 18

Location: Monterey, California

Budget: Up to $20

About them: We enjoy sitting with friends around our festive bonfire out back, overlooking the rolling hills of Monterey, enjoying ribs and coleslaw (Mom’s homemade recipe), roasting marshmallows, and sharing stories. The girls love sports (varsity volleyball, hip hop, and ballet) and being social.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: A sparkly, circular, thin makeup case with mirror, which was secretly an iPhone battery. They also liked LED string lights that came with a remote to control dimming and pulsing, and was most importantly USB-powered, for serendipitous, expeditionary illumination of the net, court, and sand during nighttime volleyball at Carmel beach, and for the “Trunk-or-Treat” Halloween celebration at school, where senior girls line up their cars outside the school boarders' dormitories, open up their trunks (outlined with glowing LEDs) from which to dispense candy, play their latest from Spotify, and socialize, socialize, socialize.

Our suggestion(s): To facilitate your daughters’ passion for fraternizing, why not get them a portable speaker they can share? Or, one for each if you don’t mind going over budget? This one’s on sale for $28, has wireless bluetooth capability for optimal use on the beach, and can easily recharge through its micro USB cable. Or, you could look into getting them a Birchbox subscription to split ($10 a month, or $110 for the year). The service sends a monthly box of makeup samples for them to explore new looks. Also, don’t underestimate the appeal to them of getting something nice and small that just came from you, Dad. Something like this sweet clutch ($24), this monogram keychain ($11+) or leather knot keychain ($15), or this druzy necklace ($20). Take a look at those and see if any fit your daughters’ personalities.

eBoy

The Thespian Boyfriend

Age: 20

Location: Dublin, Ireland

Budget: Up to $100

About them: Hugely interested in and passionate about theatre, but already has a large extensive collection of plays, films, and books. Talented actor and aspiring playwright. Very culturally engaged and musically talented—plays synth and omnichord, loves unusual instruments. Hero is David Bowie. Incredibly charming and fully at home with his eccentricities. Loves engaging with the interesting, curious, and alternative things in life—fascinated by everything but places culture at the centre of his world. Has encyclopaedic knowledge of theatre, film, and music. An incredibly warm and funny person who is grateful for most gifts, but has so much already that he's hard to buy something really special for! Birthday is in December too, so pressure always on to get a good present.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: Anything personalised, anything evidently “from the heart.” Favourite present in recent years was probably his synth. Loves presents that can aid his artistic and theatrical projects.

Our suggestion(s): Open up his composition capabilities with this MIDI keyboard ($79 on sale). It comes with software that might take his creativity to a whole new level. You could also personalize a Moleskine music notebook ($14-$25, depending on size and personalization) for him, if writing music is among his many talents. And if a go-do gift is up his alley, you could invest in a “family” membership (which covers two people) to the National Gallery of Ireland (100 euros) or another nearby museum you’d both like getting lost in on dreary afternoons.

eBoy

The Norm-Bucking Sister

Age: 20

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Budget: Up to $50

About them: Queer, vegan, socialist, atheist, social scientist. Likes plants and fungi. Is trying to get into art. Excellent at finding unique music on Spotify. Is very proud to be a Pittsburgher, and would like you to forget she originated in the Garden State. Doesn't shave body hair for political reasons. Stares a lot. Keeps to herself.

We like to bake together, but tend to clash because she's more fast and loose with ingredients and I need everything to be measured out. And whenever we make something we try to eat it all in one sitting, because we don't like baked goods hanging around the house for days. She has a hard-line stance against makeup, dresses, nail polish, purses, jewelry, and basically anything else traditionally feminine. When we go shopping together she doesn't even enter the women's section. She really like bananas; she used to eat like 5 to 10 bananas a day. When we were kids, if she ever found a bee in the garden that couldn't fly, she would make it a house out of mulch and twigs to protect it. She's a really funny and creative person. She's really passionate about her beliefs concerning social justice. I'm pretty sure she's at a Trump protest right now. We both got really into campaigning for Bernie Sanders together, and we voted together for the first time last May in the New Jersey primary. She likes to draw little faces on things, like mushrooms and fruit. She will occasionally break out into spontaneous impressions of Steve Irwin. She used to draw a lot when she was a kid, but then she stopped. Now she's trying to get back into it, watching YouTube tutorials on how to use pastels and things, and she's made some really beautiful stuff.

Growing up, I kind of always looked up to her as my older sister. I admired her refusal to compromise on her values. And I thought she was cool because she read a lot—really large books too—and I had trouble reading. She made me my first mixtape when I was 13, and it was the coolest thing ever to me because she didn't like to talk about what music she liked to listened to, and now she was sharing it with me. We're both really into music now and trade playlists on Spotify. She has impeccable grammar skills, and has spent years correcting my "should of"s to "should have"s.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: I think once I got her a book she liked? Probably not though.

Our suggestion(s): Your admiration for your big sister is utterly heartwarming. Anything that equips her to further the interests you’ve identified here, or expands her slate, is a solid gift idea. If she isn’t already into kombucha (a fermented beverage sometimes associated with new-agey hipsters that my digestive system and I will defend until our mutual demise), she might really dig an introduction; GT’s Kombucha is increasingly available in mainstream grocery-store chains, so it’s slightly less of a niche product than before. (To save you from a rookie mistake that I and others have fallen victim to: If you grab one to try, do NOT shake the bottle before opening.) You could get her a basic home-brewing kit ($45) if you know she likes the end result. You could also support her venturing back into art-making with a combo wooden easel and supplies drawer ($14 on sale). And depending on her living situation at school, this cute indoor herb garden ($46) might be an easy way to appeal to her botanic interests—rosemary, sage, thyme, and oregano are fairly safe bets.

eBoy

The Renaissance-Man Romeo

Age: 24

Location: Baltimore, Maryland

Budget: Up to $50

About them: We met through a dating app, and by the third date, it was established we both really liked each other. We're both black, went to good schools for undergrad, and in master's programs but at different schools in the city—he's going for writing and wants to be a novelist after, if he can. He likes all of the staple authors: Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, etc. He also student-teaches and when we started dating, he was working on a translation of Lu Xun (he's fluent in Chinese). He did rugby in undergrad and now does MMA; he grew up horseback riding, doing archery, and playing guitar. Even with all this, he's not actually a “jock” or a “bro” type. We often cook things together with his two cats and his style is kind of dapper queer aesthetic but chill—he describes himself as a hipster. Bit of a nerd, he likes Games of Thrones and goes to the Renaissance fair each year. We probably won't be spending a bunch of time together over the holidays—my plane tickets back home and to visit friends across the country were already bought before I met him—so it feels extra-important that the gift is thoughtful and good. He just does or has done so many interesting things that it's throwing me for a loop.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: Our second date was right before his birthday so, when we were walking around, I pulled him into a cute wine shop I knew and bought him a bottle we picked out. He liked it, but obviously that was trying to be appropriate for a second date and this is "The Holidays." I have a tendency to stress over the perfect gift and go overboard instead and end up buying quantity over quality, so I'm counting on y'all to pick out something solid.

Our suggestion(s): There’s a risk, when trying to further a self-described nerd’s interests, that their fandom long ago consumed and moved past the character universe we’re recommending, but … has he checked out Romance of the Three Kingdoms (two volumes on sale, $17 and $21)? The historical-fiction epic is considered China’s first novel, and seems like it would check several of his boxes. You mentioned his lengthy list of hobbies and past experiences; what kind of new hobbies might both of you enjoy doing together? What can be your thing as a couple? I’m a big fan of recommending go-do presents to relationships new and decades-old; it can be so easy to fall into a pattern of Netflix nights in when you love just being with a person. But if spending Tuesday nights at a couples sommelier class while low-key over-analyzing other people’s relationships isn’t your bag, how about giving him this cookbook ($18) full of Renaissance-era recipes (with updates for the modern cook) and flagging a few to make together? It shows you’re game to get involved with his offbeat proclivities, and promises some fun date nights as you continue getting to know each other.

eBoy

The Arts-and-Craftsy Wife

Age: 30

Location: Michigan

Budget: Up to $200

About them: My wife is difficult to shop for—we are well off enough that we can usually purchase stuff that we need or want, especially since we try to keep within our budget for the holidays. The possible exception is jewelry—not necessarily precious, but one of a kind. She also likes crafts and art—not any specific type in a sustained way, but dabbling in a lot of different activities. She also values fitness but in a casual way; she likes to bike and run, but she is not a gym rat.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: For recent holidays she has been big on experience, but we have a young child and many of the obvious experiences (massage, pedicure, etc.) have been done before. Big wins for me in the past have included a vintage Honda motorcycle jacket, brass-wire jewelry from Poland, and a hot-air balloon ride.

Our suggestion(s): Because your wife is crafty without a particular medium, she might really love a jewelry-making class ($15–$40, plus materials) or a project kit (huge range in price, $9–$260+) on Craftsy—this wire-weaving class might be a great fit for her. You could buy her the class (or draft a homemade “gift certificate” so she can pick that one or another) and go with her to purchase supplies. It’s a sweet way to show you support her artistic interests. You could also schedule for spring some time together outside: This “rockhound” resource highlights stops around the Upper Peninsula. (In a storybook tie-in, she might find some jewelry-ready stones along the way to incorporate into her new craft—but at the very least, it’ll be a pretty decent road trip.) For less involved gifts that still bring a little extra, check out Punjammies, lounge pants made by women in India working to remain free from sex slavery, according to the company; she could easily wear this print out of the house ($54). Or, 31Bits and Ten Thousand Villages both offer up jewelry made sustainably around the world. I’m wholly obsessed with this brass pendant ($58) at 31Bits, this cuff bracelet ($35) handmade in Kenya, and these earrings ($30) made from bomb casings in Cambodia.

eBoy

The Handy, Outdoorsy Boyfriend

Age: 32

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana

Budget: Up to $200

About them: He loves the outdoors, anything on or in the water, fixing up old things (furniture, boats, etc.), building things, cooking, maps, all things Scottish, boxing, and is a budding entrepreneur. He doesn't get excited about many material gifts. He's pretty quiet and NOT EASY to shop for! Every gift I've ever been really excited about giving him has been used once or twice, if ever.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: A framed map is probably the gift he expressed the most excitement over. Ugh.

Our suggestion(s): How about planning or proposing a volunteer trip together? Check out volunteerlouisiana.gov and find a time when both of you could help with flood-response efforts in the aftermath of the storms this year. Habitat for Humanity is also a reliable option. You’d be spending time together outdoors, working with your hands, and doing something for the greater good—sounds like he might be into all of that. If a little recreation is in order, you could sign up for a three-hour canoe or kayak tour ($59 per person) or customize your own. Or, seek out a boxing match and make a raucous date night out of it; Friday Night Fights in NOLA sounds like a helluva time, albeit with infrequent iterations.

eBoy

The Preschool-Teaching Sister

Age: 32

Location: Iowa

Budget: Up to $100

About them: She is very creative and artistic. Is a preschool teacher. She has six kids and, as described by my mom, no time for hobbies. In all honesty, my sister and I haven't spent much time together alone, as adults. Which is probably why I find gift-buying for her especially hard. When we were younger (under 15), we enjoyed biking and spending time outdoors. My mom used to take us to plays, which we both enjoyed. My sister lives in a rural area, with the nearest "big city" an hour away. She spends her time at church, at kids activities, and doing daily household tasks. She used to enjoy manicures and pedicures and that would be something she wouldn't necessarily spend on, so I got her a gift card for her birthday for this. I don't think she has ever used it. She likes clothes. Her life to me seems hard. I can't imagine not having personal time to do the things I enjoy. My wish for her would be to give something that would make her life easier, like automating a daily task or giving her time for herself. Can you buy someone freedom?

Gift(s) they’ve loved: N/A

Our suggestion(s): StitchFix might be a great gift for your sister. For $20 a shipment, she can get a regular delivery (the company lets the customer choose the frequency) of new clothes to try, and can buy the items she loves. When she sets up a profile, she’ll be able to identify her style, sizes, and price range so she doesn’t end up with a beautiful piece she can’t purchase guilt-free. You could also put together a “help Mom with the chores” package that might ease the housework burden: BOX4BLOX ($45) is a sneaky, fun way to get the kiddos to help pick up. Look at the kid-sized Slipper Genie ($19) and try not to picture an updated, miniature Breakfast Club dance montage set in your sister’s kitchen. And the carpet roller is one of the most enduringly fascinating cleaning devices for small ones; add to the gift package a child-sized model ($30) from forsmallhands.com, an amazing online store that features, among other things, grown-up cleaning supplies sized for children. Its indoor-clean-up section alone occupied much of my browsing time one recent afternoon.

eBoy

The Knows-What-She-Likes Wife

Age: 43

Location: Northern California

Budget: More than $200

About them: Reader, picky, from the Midwest, loves food from around the world, never seems overly surprised by the things I get her. She loves to camp and our best times together have been while traveling. Her favorite book is The Prophet by Paolo Coehlo; she loves Shakespeare and she went back to school and wrote her dissertation on Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet. She is a thoughtful person who cares deeply about her family, but being Midwestern she wears her deepest emotions far on the inside. I think the gift that she reminds me that I gave her for Christmas was bath towels, so I could really use some help in finding a gift that will really move her. Oh yeah, every year she puts together a picture book of all our good memories for the year.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: a purse

Our suggestion(s): (My colleague Matt Thompson had an especially fantastic idea for this gift, so I’ll let him take this one.) An author named J. Ryan Stradal wrote a wonderful novel that might be perfect for your wife, called Kitchens of the Great Midwest ($17). Each chapter of the book follows a different character, but all of their lives revolve around one common thread we won't spoil for you. Buy your wife the novel. Note that it's filled with recipes. Buy high-quality ingredients. The audiobook version of the novel—voiced by two different actors pairing off, filled with note-perfect Midwestern accents—is a delight. Buy that too. Each chapter works as a short story, so you can listen to the book together while you make the recipes.  Cajole someone with beautiful writing to copy the recipes for you on quality paper by hand, and bind them into a keepsake. Enjoy!

—Matt Thompson

eBoy

The Paragon-of-Self-Control Husband

Age: 44

Location: Smyrna, Delaware

Budget: Up to $200

About them: Cuban heritage, semi-Republican, Catholic, seven siblings, loves reading history and military-related books, immersed in healthy living (eating and exercise), hates the outdoors, father of three girls, hates Trump, hates Clinton, social beliefs very liberal-leaning. My husband, in addition to what I've told you so far, prides himself on self-control (emotional and physical). He won't partake in any substance that might hinder his ability to have complete control over his body or emotions. He can come across as rather conceited and uptight because of this, but is actually one of the more laidback people you'll come across. He tries, usually very unsuccessfully, to be diplomatic in all situations, which can be just as difficult when you fall firmly in the independent category. He enjoys reading and is much more well-read than the average person with an advanced degree, which he also has. He reads The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs magazine, albeit constantly interrupted by our three children. Although he was born and raised in the U.S., his idea of family is more important and immediate to him than your average American. Spending time with his family is very much like that movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. He's also extremely handsome and in very good physical condition. So much so that people can be somewhat taken off guard. Women often assume he's conceited; people don't stop and stare, but he is a hunk … A favorite memory is more an amalgam of many memories together. He is very thoughtful, much more so than I am, and does things for me often. If my car is low on gas, he'll go fill it; if I don't have any of the candy I like in the house, he'll run out to grab some. I like spending time with him, I think, because we're so different.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: Foreign Affairs subscription; an expensive watch

Our suggestion(s): Has your buff husband ever tried indoor rock-climbing? You could gift him three trial climbs with instructors at Delaware Rock Gym ($20), potentially unlocking a new fitness-focused pastime. You could also try a package of books; we’ve heard great things about The Living and the Dead by Brian Mockenhaupt ($3 on Kindle), Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre ($18 on sale), and How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything by Rosa Brooks ($18 on sale). Or, if you’d like to up his game in the kitchen, you could get him an airfryer ($160 on sale) for oil-free snacks and sides. Or, if you feel like you’ve got a pretty good idea of what tasting notes he goes for, you could make him a custom protein bar (price varies)—a box of 12, actually—that’s low-sugar, high-protein, or whatever nutrition profile might suit him.

eBoy

The Vocal, Opinionated Mom

Age: 49

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Budget: More than $200

About them: Likes baking, dislikes messes and her daughter in law who she thinks is too passive. Widow for 5 years and devoted to her family. Orthodox Jew with a career in education. Loves clothes and loves to shop. Opinionated, talkative, proud, straight-laced. Generous with time and advice; defy her at your own peril.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: sentimental lists; handbag

Our suggestion(s): Too often we wait until it’s almost too late to start recording our relatives’ notes of wisdom. Why not start now? Buy a Zoom recorder ($100) and “gift” her an hour or two of recording time a week. You’ll sit together and just let her riff. If it’s awkward at first, try keeping in mind something like these journaling prompts; I’d bet her memories and aphorisms are tied together quite closely. You could also do this by phone by setting the Zoom to record with your phone on speaker, or using Skype, though the sound quality might suffer. Use a free editing program like Audacity to cut them all together (it’s easier than it sounds, I promise), or upload them as individual clips to Soundcloud. Establishing a living library shows that you value that advice and time she’s so generous with. Some similar ideas if you’re intimidated by the technical aspect: Give her a line-a-day memory book ($14), or take a blank recipe book ($7) and start filling in the ones of hers you know, leaving room for her to add in her aphorisms and notes alongside.

eBoy

The Mystery-Aficionado Mom

Age: 53

Location: Somerset, Ohio

Budget: Up to $200

About them: Was a single mom, now married to my stepdad of 20 years. Staunch feminist. Has degrees in mathematics and anthropology. Runs family manufacturing business started by her parents in the ’80s. Loves gardening, remodeling her 1801 Federalist house, crochet (NOT KNITTING!). Absolutely must have a project of some kind at all times. Aficionado of mysteries and thrillers (P.D. James, Agatha Christie, John le Carré, etc.) and raised-letter novels. Lifelong devotee of PBS and British imports. I was raised on Diana Rigg's shoulder pads. Loves Harry Potter, has enjoyed Parks and Recreation and Community from what I've shown her. Enjoys blankets, black coffee, baking, post-dinner gin and tonics, and falling asleep on the couch at 8 p.m. Has a bichon frise named Popcorn who accompanies her to work every day. If she wants anything, she buys it. If she wanted something, she'd already own it.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: N/A

Our suggestions: OK, forgive us for fudging on the budget from the start, but this splurge sounds so perfect for her: Register her for a one-night murder mystery adventure with a friend (maybe you?) at the White Oak Inn in Danville, Ohio ($324). She might also like a collection of Kerry Greenwood’s “Phyrne Fisher” books—this edition includes her first three adventures for $17, and the others usually range from $10 to $15 each. There’s an excellent Australian TV series based on the books; if she hasn’t watched every episode already, she might love a DVD collection of its three seasons ($80). I’m intrigued by this collection of eight suspense novels ($58) from the 1940s and ’50s—maybe there’s one or two in there she hasn’t read yet? Another good source for new author ideas: our story from the July/August issue on the women writing the best crime novels today.

eBoy

The ESPN Dad

Age: 64

Location: Maryland

Budget: Up to $100

About them: He loves watching sports on TV—any sport, any team, all weekend. He doesn't watch movies, read books, or listen to music. He's a fan of history, like as a general concept ... He's a big guy (XXXL). He's a finance manager at a Ford dealership. He needs nothing, he wants nothing, but my siblings and I have to get him presents every year! I can't get him another Villanova hoodie! (His alma mater.) Our mom usually just gets him new socks and cologne. My dad is introverted and he's always had a hard time connecting with his children. He worked all the time when we were kids and as we grew up, I think he didn't really know what to do with us. Our family vacations were sporadic and always to some historical landmark that no one else was interested in. My sister and I wanted amusement parks! As an adult, I love history—but as a child, touring Civil War battlegrounds felt like actual torture. Recently, as I've gotten older and had my own children, we have grown closer as a family. This past spring, we all went to Disney World together (my parents, my sister, my brother, his girlfriend, my husband, my two kids, and me). It was probably the best time we've had together. We went to the parks together, and my parents took day trips to see historical sights. Everybody got what they wanted and we all got to celebrate my daughter's fifth birthday together. My dad and I are very different. I'm loud and optimistic. He's quiet and pessimistic. I guess the thing that really connects us is how much we both love my mom and my kids. It makes me happy to see them have experiences with him that I feel like I missed out on.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: I literally have no idea. He never even opened the Mad Men DVDs I bought him. I think he liked a history of football book I once got him. It was in his bathroom anyway …

Our suggestions: This would be a bit over your budget, but maybe you and your siblings could go in on a pool of tickets to take him to see the Ravens play—tickets start at $75 each. You could also pick and choose among the 30 for 30 DVD gift sets—this one’s $50. And what about something to augment his kicking-back-in-front-of-the-TV hobby? Make him his very own trail mix (price varies) for some snacks from the heart.

eBoy

The Constant Mother

Age: 66

Location: Morton, Illinois

Budget: Up to $100

About them: My mom is a caregiver for our family and rarely has time for herself. She takes care of my dad who has MS and my sister's family who have multiple health issues. I live many states away and try to think of gifts that will make my mom's life easier or give her a few moments of comfort. The only idea I have this year is a gift certificate to a restaurant so she doesn't have to cook, but I would like to find a more personal gift. She enjoys reading and doing puzzles but gets both from the library. She is very practical and fairly reserved, so I don't think she would enjoy a spa certificate. She doesn't watch a lot of TV, but she likes the DVDs for Planet Earth and Peanuts. She grew up in very rural Pennsylvania and lived in Belgium for a few years when my dad was transferred there for work.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: I bought her a neck and shoulder wrap that you warm in the microwave, and that was a winner.  

Our suggestion(s): Sounds like your mother could use a daily mini-escape. Buy her some noise-cancelling headphones ($65) she can wear while making dinner or doing other caretaking tasks. Then help her get set up to download audiobooks from the library—this FAQ section might be useful. You could also go ahead and buy an audiobook she might like; I just finished and loved They May Not Mean to, but They Do by Cathleen Schine, a novel about the evolving relationships between parents and adult children as time goes on. Or, if it’s time to update the neck and shoulder wrap, this one ($70) massages and heats. You could also get her a collection of tools to help save time while cooking—maybe a Garlic or NutZoom ($10-$18), an easy-to-read meat thermometer ($20 on sale) for the oven, a pair of scissors to cut fresh herbs ($11 on sale), or hybrid temperature tongs ($34) for the grill.

eBoy

The Far-Away Mom

Age: 83

Location: Albany, New York

Budget: More than $200

About them: Wheelchair-bound, raised six kids, liked to play the clarinet (but can't any longer), Catholic. I wish I could bring her more joy. I live in Charlotte—just moved—so don't see her as much as I wish.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: Fresco from the Vatican, yummy food

Our suggestions: Your mother might appreciate a St. John’s Bible edition of the Book of Gospels ($299-$350), whose full-color “illuminations” sound beautiful. Or, plan a visit just to see her, and take her to the Albany Symphony ($57 a ticket) so she can revel in the woodwinds’ contributions. Or, since she loves yummy food, set her up with a Try the World subscription—roughly $39 a month will bring her a box of treats from all over for a regular surprise even when you can’t be there.

eBoy

The Great-Artist Grandma

Age: 91

Location: Springfield, Missouri

Budget: Up to $100

About them: Can't do a lot of things she likes due to age and poor health. Abstract painter (first woman at OU to have her own show!), likes Sudoku and cryptograms though her vision is getting worse; likes dogs, loves pink, used to have a garden, likes puzzles but needs big pieces to see, enjoys watching British TV shows and mysteries with me.

Gift(s) they’ve loved: Cryptogram and Sudoku books, puzzles

Our suggestion(s): This involves a little bit of legwork on your part, but not too much, and we think it sounds perfect for your grandma: Make a puzzle of one of her paintings ($35). This site has several piece-size options so you can pick one that will be easiest for her to work with. You could also get her something to make TV-watching even cozier when you’re there with her—the “peach eco” throw and pillows here sound lovely ($37).

What’s the best gift you’ve ever received? Or the best gift you’ve ever given?  What was your thought process in selecting or making that gift?

Tell us about it in an email to hello@theatlantic.com,

and we may post your response in Notes.

The Transformers: The Last Knight Trailer: What the Hell?

Why, exactly, do moviegoers need a fifth Transformers film? None other than Anthony Hopkins is here to explain. “Two species at war, one flesh, one metal,” he intones over the trailer for Transformers: The Last Knight. “Optimus Prime has left us. One hundred billion trillion planets in the cosmos. You want to know, don't you? Why they keep coming here?” That does indeed seem to be the question at hand, especially after a year during which Hollywood lobbed CGI-laden, toy-centric sequels at the screen to little effect. Why do these terrible movies keep coming?

Transformers: The Last Knight represents, it seems, the pinnacle of audience fatigue, a product of all of Hollywood’s worst impulses in an era when studios are struggling to find new paths to profit. The last Transformers film, Age of Extinction, was a relative disappointment domestically, making $245 million (which may sound like a colossal sum, but it cost far more to make and market). Aside from Hopkins’s booming voice and a brief glimpse of Mark Wahlberg, the trailer barely features any flesh-and-blood humans, as if the studio believes audience attachment to day-glo mega-bots like Bumblebee will be enough to sell tickets. Forget about reaching “peak sequel”; Hollywood may be going post-human.

Why else would Transformers: The Last Knight tell the story of Earth being under threat from a gigantic robo-planet? That’s about all I could successfully glean from the two-and-a-half-minute trailer, which also features a slowed-down version of The Flaming Lips song “Do You Realize??” and some muddy footage of medieval knights. Further investigation reveals that the film plans to delve into the mythology behind the creation of this race of robots that can turn into trucks and various military vehicles—and that will somehow involve the legend of King Arthur.

Hopkins will no doubt play a professor or mad scientist of some sort, included both to legitimize the film with some Oscar-winning gravitas and provide necessary dumps of exposition. Hopkins is a master at both; when discussing Hopkins’s appearance as Odin in Marvel’s first Thor film in 2011, his co-star Chris Hemsworth remembered their first day on set together in costume. “We were both dressed up in full gear and we looked at each other and shook our heads, and he said, ‘There’s no acting required here is there? We’ll let these do the work!’” No acting required, indeed—it’s that lack of effort, outside of the visual spectacle, that 2016’s worst Hollywood projects have in common, and viewer weariness is definitely settling in.

This year’s box office is rife with franchise flops. X-Men: Apocalypse was one of the lowest-grossing efforts in the long-running series. Independence Day: Resurgence made less than half of the original for more than twice the price. Inexplicable sequels to films like Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Now You See Me came and went, loved by nobody. In a market dominated by consistent hits like the Marvel movies, studios drew the conclusion that everything could be turned into a franchise, an experiment that has backfired again and again.

The Transformers film series, a revival of the ’80s toy market and its affiliated cartoon series, has been running since 2007, always directed by the master of mayhem Michael Bay. The franchise’s second installment took $400 million at the U.S. box office; the third made $352 million, and the fourth, only $245 million. It’s easy to read the tea leaves: The market for these movies is aging out. But outside of the United States, Transformers still does fine, with its last two editions making a staggering $1.1 billion each worldwide, which helps make up for any disinterest in the American market.

Still, for all my bullishness that Hollywood’s sequel machine would finally slow down after a terrible 2016, the trailer for Transformers: The Last Knight is a good reminder that movie studios are ocean liners. It’ll take them years to get out of their own way, and there’s no better evidence than this tidbit: Though The Last Knight will reportedly be Bay’s last directorial effort for the franchise, a Transformers 6 is already in the works for 2019, and before that, viewers will get a Bumblebee spinoff. Still no acting required.

Transformers: The Last Knight Is the Height of Hollywood Foolishness

Why, exactly, do moviegoers need a fifth Transformers film? None other than Anthony Hopkins is here to explain. “Two species at war, one flesh, one metal,” he intones over the trailer for Transformers: The Last Knight. “Optimus Prime has left us. One hundred billion trillion planets in the cosmos. You want to know, don't you? Why they keep coming here?” That does indeed seem to be the question at hand, especially after a year during which Hollywood lobbed CGI-laden, toy-centric sequels at the screen to little effect. Why do these terrible movies keep coming?

Transformers: The Last Knight represents, it seems, the pinnacle of audience fatigue, a product of all of Hollywood’s worst impulses in an era when studios are struggling to find new paths to profit. The last Transformers film, Age of Extinction, was a relative disappointment domestically, making $245 million (which may sound like a colossal sum, but it cost far more to make and market). Aside from Hopkins’s booming voice and a brief glimpse of Mark Wahlberg, the trailer barely features any flesh-and-blood humans, as if the studio believes audience attachment to day-glo mega-bots like Bumblebee will be enough to sell tickets. Forget about reaching “peak sequel”; Hollywood may be going post-human.

Why else would Transformers: The Last Knight tell the story of Earth being under threat from a gigantic robo-planet? That’s about all I could successfully glean from the two-and-a-half-minute trailer, which also features a slowed-down version of The Flaming Lips song “Do You Realize??” and some muddy footage of medieval knights. Further investigation reveals that the film plans to delve into the mythology behind the creation of this race of robots that can turn into trucks and various military vehicles—and that will somehow involve the legend of King Arthur.

Hopkins will no doubt play a professor or mad scientist of some sort, included both to legitimize the film with some Oscar-winning gravitas and provide necessary dumps of exposition. Hopkins is a master at both; when discussing Hopkins’s appearance as Odin in Marvel’s first Thor film in 2011, his co-star Chris Hemsworth remembered their first day on set together in costume. “We were both dressed up in full gear and we looked at each other and shook our heads, and he said, ‘There’s no acting required here is there? We’ll let these do the work!’” No acting required, indeed—it’s that lack of effort, outside of the visual spectacle, that 2016’s worst Hollywood projects have in common, and viewer weariness is definitely settling in.

This year’s box office is rife with franchise flops. X-Men: Apocalypse was one of the lowest-grossing efforts in the long-running series. Independence Day: Resurgence made less than half of the original for more than twice the price. Inexplicable sequels to films like Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Now You See Me came and went, loved by nobody. In a market dominated by consistent hits like the Marvel movies, studios drew the conclusion that everything could be turned into a franchise, an experiment that has backfired again and again.

The Transformers film series, a revival of the ’80s toy market and its affiliated cartoon series, has been running since 2007, always directed by the master of mayhem Michael Bay. The franchise’s second installment took $400 million at the U.S. box office; the third made $352 million, and the fourth, only $245 million. It’s easy to read the tea leaves: The market for these movies is aging out. But outside of the United States, Transformers still does fine, with its last two editions making a staggering $1.1 billion each worldwide, which helps make up for any disinterest in the American market.

Still, for all my bullishness that Hollywood’s sequel machine would finally slow down after a terrible 2016, the trailer for Transformers: The Last Knight is a good reminder that movie studios are ocean liners. It’ll take them years to get out of their own way, and there’s no better evidence than this tidbit: Though The Last Knight will reportedly be Bay’s last directorial effort for the franchise, a Transformers 6 is already in the works for 2019, and before that, viewers will get a Bumblebee spinoff. Still no acting required.

The Culture Wars in the Grammy Album Nominations

The Grammy nominations will not, alas, fix America’s divisions. Music is more tribalistic, more identity-entangled, than any other popular art form, and so the notion of everyone agreeing on the “best” song or album perpetually seems like a bland fantasy. It’s more interesting to think of the Grammys as a clash between values and allegiances—a familiar sort of clash these days.

The most zeitgeist-trolling category is Album of the Year because it draws from all genres and carries with it some trickier criteria than “is this song good?” This time, the contenders are Adele’s 25, Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Drake’s Views, Justin Bieber’s Purpose, and Sturgill Simpson’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth. Of these, the topline face-off is between Adele and Beyoncé, mega-famous pop divas who in the past year came to sharpen the distinctions between themselves—and between the different kinds of ambitions that can shape culture.

Adele has doubled down on her broadly appealing traditionalism. She was already the closest thing contemporary music has to a unifier, making songs for kids and grandparents, pop obsessives and pop skeptics. Then her single “Hello” acted as a Hollywood blockbuster sequel to her previous smashes, and her stately, safe 25 was released in a manner—physical and download only, no streaming—that signaled its throwback appeal. At the Grammys, this all would seem a route to success, especially given that her previous album, 21, won across all of the general categories in 2012. That 25 in many ways feels like a redux of that album, and that it also made the industry heaps of money, suggests such a sweep could happen again.

Beyoncé by contrast has lately been on a politically charged experimental kick, premiering her eclectic album-slash-art-movie Lemonade on HBO and riling up what’s left of the American monoculture via racially conscious performances at the Super Bowl. She was once such a consensus artist that SNL satirized the stigma against criticizing her, but now she’s controversial—and even more beloved, among critics and her huge contingent of fans, for it.

This may only heighten the segregated dynamics that have historically affected her (and many other black artists) on Grammy night. She is the most nominated woman in the award show’s history, but of her 20 wins, only one was ever in a general-field (rather than, say, pop or R&B) category. Yet her genre-hopping is paying awards dividends in other ways: Her track “Don’t Hurt Yourself” has put her on the list of nominees for Best Rock Performance. As strange as it is to say about one of the most famous singers in the world, a win for Lemonade would signal a more daring and politically conscious sensibility than the Academy is usually associated with. It would also keep Kanye West off the stage.

As for a Drake win? It could also signal an embrace of an ascendant eclecticism: The globally inflected sound of his album Views dominated conversations in the rap world this year yet also served up a pop crossover moment with the quantitative song-of-the-summer winner “One Dance.” But he’s facing a strong headwinds in the Grammys historical bias against hip-hop in the general categories. It doesn’t help that he’s also divisive as a celebrity: Even among many casual fans, it’s socially acceptable to call Drake annoying.

There are two curveball nominations, one perhaps a popularity bid and the other a credibility bid. The popular one is Bieber’s Purpose. He’s a household name but has lacked the adult respectability that typically makes for Grammys success; tellingly, he’s received only three nominations before now. But his transition to a more grown-up, cutting-edge sound resulted in his first Grammy win last year and four nominations this year. “Love Yourself,” a cleverly written acoustic ballad, would seem to have a real chance in the Song of the Year category where it’s nominated. But he’s still seen by many as a teen-pop artist with a bad attitude, and it’s hard to imagine why a mainstream-minded listener would vote for his album over Adele’s or Beyoncé’s.

Sturgill Simpson’s A Sailor’s Guide to the Earth, meanwhile, serves as the reliable (if unexpected) alternative to all of the above. The relatively obscure 38-year-old likely owes his nomination to the fact that his excellent album fills the typical white-guy-with-a-guitar slot while also representing two constituencies: country music and critically acclaimed rock.

But Simpson, an adventuresome songwriter with a voice recalling George Strait’s, is often talked about as a purveyor of country music for people who think they’re too cool for country music. As such, his nomination doesn’t really signal to mainstream Nashville listeners that their tastes are reflected in the Grammys general categories (though the Best New Artist nominations feature two new country contenders, Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris). His nod is also not much of consolation prize for rock fans sad to see David Bowie’s Blackstar or Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool snubbed in the general categories. Still, Simpson’s got a constituency that may hold a certain amount of sway at the Grammys: When the nominations were announced this morning on CBS, Charlie Rose said he was a huge fan.

The Golden Age of the TV Bathroom

The pilot episode of Insecure finds the show’s heroine, Issa, engaging in a timeless ritual: getting ready for a night out. Dressed, but not yet quite Ready, she tries on a series of different lipsticks—siren-red, magenta, purple-pink, blue-black—and, with them, different personas. Red: She flirts with the image in the mirror. Magenta: She chats with it. Nothing is quite right. Finally, frustrated, Issa wipes off the color and swipes on some clear lip balm. She smiles at the image that looks back at her.

It’s a scene—set in Issa’s bathroom, with its drab, plastic shower curtain and its mustard-yellow tiles—that runs like a refrain through that first episode, a reminder to Issa that while she may be, as her show’s name suggests, insecure, that inconvenient fact need not be the one that defines her. Insecure, based on Issa Rae’s web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, may be about Issa’s relationships with her best friend and her boyfriend and her coworkers; it is also, however, about Issa’s relationship with herself. Its eight episodes, the first set on her 29th birthday, find that the person Issa actually is contending with is the person she thought she’d have become by now. And that mirrored, window-less, tight little room, where armor is applied and then shed, is an apt setting for that. Issa’s bathroom, Rae recently told Terry Gross, is “the only place that she is actually honest with herself and expresses her thoughts in a way that she can’t in the outside world.”

The televised bathroom is an architectural argument for the sacredness of solitude.

You’re not—we’re not, generally—supposed to talk about bathrooms. They’re dirty. They’re awkward. They’re places for doing things we are meant, in the name of propriety, to pretend we do not do. It’s those universal intimacies, though, that make bathrooms so fitting as settings for scenes like Insecure’s—which may be why more and more TV shows are featuring them so prominently in their action. A bathroom has been the setting for Van’s desperate drug-test preparations in Atlanta. And for Hannah’s bath-cupcake in the first episode of Girls. And for Fleabag’s cruel shower prank, and Broad City’s toilet-tokings, and Divorce’s divorce, and This Is Us’s timeless scene of a daughter watching her mother, wrapped in a towel, after a shower: The girl can’t help but compare her mother’s physique to her own. And she can’t help, then, but find herself lacking.

Bathrooms, by turns cold and intimate, by turns sterile and unclean, by turns secluded and shared, celebrate the shedding of illusions. And their new ubiquity on television is its own kind of mirror: It reflects a moment, in American culture, that is frustrated with fantasy, and that, as a result, privileges the real and the raw. It suggests, too, that moment’s anxieties—of Sony and Snapchat and the sudden omnipresence of the word “hack”—about how easily things that once were private can be made so promiscuously public. The televised bathroom is an architectural argument: for windowless walls, for closed doors, for the sacredness of solitude.

The episode of Leave It to Beaver that was meant to be the sitcom’s debut, in 1957, ended up being delayed in its airing: The plot line of “Captain Jack” found Beaver and Wally, inspired by an ad in a comic book, sending away for a “genuine Florida alligator” that, when it arrived, turned out to be an 8-inch-long baby. To prevent their parents from learning of the purchase, the boys hid the reptile in an “aquarium”: the tank of the toilet in their bathroom. CBS’s Standards and Practices group, however, was reluctant to place such a dirty device as a toilet before the delicate eyes of the American public. The network and the producers debated until, finally, a compromise was reached: “Captain Jack” could show the toilet’s tank, but not the bowl itself.

Leave It to Beaver was uniquely quaint, but its bashfulness about bathrooms was not. In 1960, Jack Paar briefly quit his role as the host of The Tonight Show after NBC cut one of his bathroom-related jokes (he had used, in it, the abbreviation “W.C.”). In the ’70s, All in the Family caused a small sensation simply by airing the sound of a toilet flushing off-camera. Bathrooms, though they were of course implied inclusions in standardized sitcom housing, were rarely depicted, in those early decades of American television, being used or even occupied. (The Brady Bunch, in the ’70s, was one exception to that: The series showed the six Brady children sharing, and using, a single bathroom. The Beaverian compromise, though? The room, famously, had no toilet.)

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Why TV Needs ‘Weak’ Female Characters

The TV bathroom, in those years, occasionally alluded to but rarely used, reflected an American entertainment industry that, echoing the culture within which it operated, preferred gleaming aspiration over accuracy. Today, though, American cultures both general and pop have evolved—and they have been shaped in that evolution by an internet that has extremely limited patience with formalities. The culture of the moment, under the influence of Tumblr posts and Facebook updates and “It Happened to Me”-style essays, tends to privilege confession, collusion, and community. It tends to value realtalk—about money, about love, about friendship, about sex, about bodily functions—over ceremony-standing.

And, so, enter the bathroom: a place where a character can talk directly to herself, and in that, also, directly to her audience. Enter the space that tangles intimacy and voyeurism—a fictional version of the “confessional room” defining the reality TV shows that have helped to make this moment what it is. Enter Earn in Atlanta, who is unable to stay at his parents’ house, thus compounding his financial burdens, because his mother hasn’t forgiven him for clogging the house’s toilets. And Maggie in Younger, who ends a romantic relationship after her girlfriend’s close-knit circle of friends descend on her while she’s in the bathroom: They, and by extension the partner, don’t share Maggie’s need for privacy—things could never work. On Fleabag, too, a relationship ends by way of an insensitive bathroom invasion (this time, via a cruel joke the eponymous anti-heroine plays on her hapless boyfriend). Divorce begins, in a moment of foreshadowing, with its core couple bickering in their bathroom.

Broad City, which, like Insecure, began its life as a web series, uses bathrooms not just as settings for scenes—of eating, of smoking, of sex—but also as, via Abbi’s “cleaner” job at Soulstice, a metaphor for the crushing difficulty of doing that once most American of things: improving one’s life by way of hard work. Girls, similarly, whose stories are also guided by frustration with fantasies, isn’t satisfied with that early bathtub cupcake; it has, throughout its seasons, explored bathrooms—the private ones of characters’ apartments and the decidedly public ones of New York City—as locations for personal and, often, sexual intimacies.

In her bathroom, Issa, the private person, prepares Issa, the public one.

Bathrooms, certainly, were also elements of the shows that came of age just before the current Golden one. They were the settings of Ross’s gloriously awkward leather-pants-and-leg-paste in Friends, and of a big life decision for Lily and Marshall in How I Met Your Mother, and of Twin Peaks’s revealing finale. The Big Bang Theory first established the will-they-or-won’t-they romance between the neighbors Penny and Leonard when she borrowed his shower; Gilmore Girls used Chilton’s girls’ room as a setting for political intrigue; Veronica Mars used Neptune High’s girls’ room for similar ends; Mad Men used Sterling Cooper’s ladies’ room as a refuge for—and an acknowledgment of—office sexism. And, of course: “If you strip the cliffhanger details from the Breaking Bad mid-season finale,” Flavorwire notes, “you’re left with… a man reading Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass on the porcelain throne.”

The bathrooms of the current crop of shows, though, aren’t merely settings; they are also, often, symbols—of the need for aloneness in a world that can be overwhelming with its sociability, of the need for honesty in a world that seems so often to prefer performance. In Atlanta’s magisterial “Juneteenth” episode, Van locks herself in a bathroom in her friend’s gaudy McMansion so she can cry in shameless solitude. Black Mirror’s “Nosedive” portends its psychic horrors by featuring, in one of its opening scenes, Lacie practicing her spontaneous laugh, with robotic repetition, in her bathroom mirror. And in the pilot of Insecure, Issa’s best friend, Molly, calls her. A co-worker at Molly’s law firm has just gotten engaged. Molly—successful, beautiful, confident in so many areas of her life—is still single. “It’s never happening for me,” she confesses to her friend, the fear finally finding a voice. Molly makes the frantic call from a stall in her law firm’s bathroom.

Bathrooms, in public, are divided by gender—a response, originally, to anxieties about women’s ability to participate, fully, in public life: The delicate sex needed, it was thought in the late 1800s, “safe spaces” where they could retreat from the dirtiness and danger of the world. Today, of course, those anxieties live on in Americans’ political discourse. They also live on, though, in pop culture—where bathrooms have become places of increasingly rare refuge from the world and its heavy demands. In her bathroom, Issa, the private person, prepares Issa, the public one. The Issa who will perform onstage, for a crowd and also for YouTube, finds her voice—and that voice is decidedly ambivalent about its own capacity to be amplified. HBO, in promoting Insecure, created a site filled with show extras: creator interviews, links to a podcast, and to essays that make observations like, “insecurity is formally defined as uncertainty or anxiety about oneself.” The site’s url? Mybathroommirror.com.

Helen Marten’s Intricate Sculptures Win the Turner Prize

Of the four artists shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize, it’s Helen Marten whose work feels the most representative of the current moment. Her sculptures create swooping, almost rhythmic structures out of seemingly disconnected objects—suitcases, cotton buds, eggshells, coffee cups—that encapsulate the ephemera of modern life. At first glance it seems haphazard, but Marten’s intention is to create order from disorder: to piece together disconnected fragments into a more intelligible narrative.

It’s this archeological approach to documenting an often-bewildering reality that presumably enthralled the judges of this year’s Turner Prize, bestowed each year by Britain’s Tate Gallery upon a modern artist under the age of 50. The director of Tate Britain, Alex Farquharson, compared Marten to a poet, praising “the complexity of the work, its amazing formal qualities, its disparate materials and techniques, and also how it relates to the world.” Her sculptures, he said, reflect the rapid, sometimes manic, condition of the world, “especially under the influence of the internet.”

It’s been a banner year for the 31-year-old sculptor from Macclesfield, England, who also won the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture in November. With that award, as with the Turner Prize, Marten pledged to share the prize money with the other finalists. “I feel frankly a little embarrassed about it all,” she told The Guardian last month. Those nominated artists include Anthea Hamilton, whose whimsical, room-sized “doorway” crafted from a pair of vast, golden buttocks commanded much of the attention bestowed upon the Turner this year. The other two finalists were Michael Dean, who crafted an installation out of £20,436 in pennies, in a nod to the official poverty line for a family of four in Britain, and Josephine Pryde, whose train-themed work “A fun ride to nowhere” was interpreted by some critics as a symbol of Britain’s stalled progress following its Brexit vote this summer.

But it was ultimately Marten whose work resonated the most. In the midst of a global debate about the dangers to democracy posed by a barrage of false information, her sculptures seem to recreate the swirling confusion and messy abundance of contemporary life, while hinting that order is yet to be found, lingering just beneath the surface.