i gave myself bangs again. frankly, i’m still processing it, so let’s move onto today’s recommendations.
hello, melo! hm hm hm. it’s a bit sad that this question made me think a bit. in its opening up to unlikeable heroes, it seems like a lot of tv has forgotten that sometimes feeling good can be nice too, without resorting to mindlessness.
ted lasso, the apple TV show that follows Jason Sudeikis as a chipper football coach who moves to england to coach soccer (or football, you know, as they call it there) is pretty good for this. as much as, in premise, it seems like this is going to be boring or stale, like the characters surrounding the titular character, you’re likely to find yourself surprised by how infectious his positivity can be. the show sees the best in its characters, even the ones who aren’t quite as pure-hearted as lasso.
as a bonus, through the dull routines of COVID life, there’s something quite comforting about watching someone discover a city they’ve just moved to.
gay rom coms are even more hard to come by than feel good television (an interesting essay on this here). i’d have to recommend appropriate behavior—though it’s certainly not saccharine in the way we’ve come to define rom coms, and is in fact about a breakup—it’s an awfully good movie that doesn’t fall into the trauma porn traps that most movies about queer characters do.
i also enjoyed watching the half of it, a movie about a girl who’s caught in a love triangle with a boy and the girl who said boy is paying her to ghostwrite letters to (even if the ending was a little flat for my liking). if you turn to rom coms specifically for eye rolls, and are looking for this vibe from gay ones too, you could try love, simon, or alex strangelove, which is only slightly less cringey. i’d also recommend the TV show work in progress.
hi, lindsay! from the wording of this question i’m assuming it’s for a gift, so i’ll operate on that assumption. because of the nature of trick mirror, i’ve divided my answers between books that are more focused on cultural criticism and books that are more focused on the personal. though much like trick mirror itself, these categories tend to overlap and veer into each other so these are kind of loose.
cultural:
hanif abdurraqib’s they can’t kill us until they kill us — abdurraqib covers fall out boy, migos, carly rae jepsen, and much more with much appreciated poeticism.
carina chocano’s you play the girl — a book that considers the representation of women in tv and film in a way that, magically, feels fresh.
alice bolin’s dead girls — ah, i love this book. just mentioning it is making me want to reread it, or at the very least, her essay on britney spears.
personal:
chelsea hodson’s tonight i’m someone else — told squarely through a personal lens, hodson reflects on youth, grand theft auto, and desire in a way that (though its cliche to say so) will totally pull you in.
trisha low’s socialist realism — in this compact volume, low weaves together art criticism, reflections on personal and familial history, and most importantly, questions the meaning of “home.”
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