Front Burner - Pop culture and the pandemic

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

As 2020 comes to a close, we take a look back at the year in pop culture. From TV shows adjusting to the pandemic to the NBA bubble, Elamin Abdelmahmoud and Amil Niazi from the CBC podcast Pop Chat drop by to talk about what movies, TV shows, and music helped us make sense of this unprecedented year.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. And the Oscar goes to Parasite. It's hard to believe, but it hasn't even been a year since that groundbreaking moment at the Oscars. That was back in February 2020. And now even the idea of going to the movies seems so foreign.

I can't even remember the last time I stood elbow to elbow with a stranger at some sort of show. In 2020, the way we took in arts and culture really changed. And the musicians, the filmmakers, and athletes who had to make this stuff, they had to shift gears too. Today, our friends from the CBC podcast Pop Chat are here to talk about all of this. Emile Niazi and Elamin Abdel-Mamoud will be my guests and we're going to look back on the year in pop culture. This is Frontburner. is Frontburner. Hey guys.

Hi. Hi. Such a pleasure to have you both here. So I do not know about you, but when this whole pandemic started, I got really into the movie Contagion, like really into the movie Contagion. I've watched it multiple times. So we have a virus with no treatment protocol and no vaccine at this time. And Elamin, what does it say about 2020 that one of the most popular movies was released in 2011? Okay, honestly, first of all, Jamie, the first

thing that I did when they announced that we were shutting down everything was also rewatch Contagion. And there was this moment where the Lawrence Fishburne character, who plays like a CDC director or something, says the phrase social distancing in the movie. Our best defense has been social distancing. No handshaking, staying home when you're sick, washing your hands frequently. And I was like, what?

The clues have been here all along. I just wasn't paying attention. But I think like, you know, the larger thing it said was was like, what? The clues have been here all along? I just wasn't paying attention? But I think, like, you know, the larger thing it said was just like, this is where we go to process information that we're dealing with. This is where we go to process trauma that we're dealing with. It's like, we hopefully have some kind of pop culture artifact to refer to that can help us through it. Right, right. I remember they're talking about the R-naught in that movie, like just the level of how contagious this is. With the new mutation, we are predicting an R-naught of no less than four. I remember watching and being like, I am just right now learning about the R-naught.

Emil, how about you? I mean, I should say I did not just watch Contagion. I also watched Outbreak, 12 Monkeys, that Will Smith movie, I Am Legend, which is that one? I don't know if i'm proud of that but i'm lieutenant colonel robert never i'm ordering you to scan her again scan her again i know we seek out things that that reflect what we're going through to make us feel better um and i was just gonna say that so i got very very sick in march i i'm 98% sure it was COVID. And the very first day that I got it, I like I couldn't move. I was had a crazy fever, I was sweating. And when I could finally get myself to the living room to watch TV to soothe my adult brain and body, I chose contagion, which seems like the wildest choice. And it was just, it really

felt like the craziest choice, but also the only choice. I was like, I have to learn everything I can about this disease that is in my body, even though it was clearly a made up disease for a movie called contagion. But there was, there was so much confusion about what was happening and what this thing was that you know it's in our nature to sort of seek out film and tv and and literature that that sort of helps us explain and understand what's happening and speaking about tv um some shows took on a pretty direct interpretation of the pandemic hey like, like, I'm thinking about Grey's Anatomy. Just the man I was looking for. Great. What now?

You tested positive for COVID-19. This is us. Tom Hanks got it. Hanks got the girl? Hanks got the girl. They incorporated the pandemic into their storylines. And, Emile, do you think that worked? Did that work for you?

It didn't work for me, to be honest. For me, it was still too soon to see that part of our reality reflected. For me, and for many people, this was a year defined by escapism and sort of the seeking out of nostalgia and things that reminded us of the before times. But I do think the show Superstore had a great episode about this, you know, because it's a show about, you know, people who work in like a Walmart type store. And so those were our essential workers. So Cloud9 isn't actually doing so well. Our employees aren't only scared, but they're spending a lot of their personal time

and money to protect themselves. So maybe if Zephyr sent over some PPE, they could focus on doing their jobs instead of worrying so much about their own health and safety. Sorry, Amy, froze after cloud nine isn't. So it's interesting to see it from that perspective. let me talk to me about saturday night live um you know at the beginning they shifted to having the cast do the show from home for a couple of episodes and what did you think of of that okay can i just say the saturday night live the episodes that they did from home were so good. To me, they were so comforting. It was so nice to see the cast I'm so familiar with be in situations that very much look like mine. Social distancing is important.

Take it from me, I've been social distancing from Justice Alito since I was three. And that's against Bernie. But I think beyond that, they wrote bits that, while they were not the funniest bits, they were kind of the realest bits. I remember one episode dealt with the one co-worker who just can't turn on Zoom. We're not cut out for this. I thought this computer only did solitaire. We ruined the Zoom. I think since they've returned to the studio, which is like at the start of their new season in the fall,

it hasn't hit with the same kind of relevancy that it did when they did those two specials from home. But like the home specials, I'm really fond of them. They wrote some really good bits that kind of worked. I don't know. Oh my God. You guys were stuck in Italy? Fuck. No. Use your brain. We traveled there. For the quarantine. good bits that kind of worked i don't know oh my god you guys were stuck in italy fuck no use your

brain we traveled there for the quarantine yeah i agree i i thought it was incredibly relevant i i not even because they were all particularly good but just because it really i totally agree with you it really did feel like they met the moment. Emile, what do you think about how they did satire wise during the year? Because this was also a huge political year, right? We're talking about a major US election. And how did SNL do? They aren't quite sure what it is that they want to say about the moment. And so I think that they, in trying to sort of take an agnostic approach, if you will, to politics, you know, in sort of falling back on Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump. Joe here is very mean. Chris Wallace is mean. The economy is mean. He keeps losing jobs, which is mean to me. And they're sort of caricatures of RBG and Hillary Clinton.

And, you know, Jim Carrey is Joe Biden. Just like, who is that character for? It's sort of unbelievably bad. A liberal state like California or a conservative state like Oklahoma or a cracked out hot mess like Florida. I will be your president. But I just think that rather than take a sharp, sort of caustic, clear-eyed approach to the bizarro world that we're living in, I think that they sort of have taken a comical, childish approach and it's gotten nowhere. Emile, I also want to ask you about reality TV, because I know you're a big fan. You know, I love it.

And in what ways did the pandemic play out in that genre? The story of the year for me is reality TV. What what's been so great is because, you know, a lot of the of the kind of usual productions came to a halt. But reality, you know, has sort of filmed ahead. And so there were great opportunities to see not just the pandemic, but, you know, the Black Lives Matter protests, the statues coming down, franchises like The Real Housewives, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, one of the sort of stars of that show, has been an active protester, an active, you know, marcher for Black Lives Matter. And she's been arrested. And that's been on the show.

The biggest takeaway from this experience is that I'm gonna do it again. The show Southern Charm, you know, they sort of dealt with the pandemic in a way that i think is very relatable because at first the cast was sort of like ah you know it's it's happening but i don't think it's really going to hit us and then half the cast gets coronavirus and has to isolate from their partners and at the same time uh black lives matter protests are happening throughout the city and they're calling for one of the statues in the town square to be taken down he wasn't he like the like vice president or yes so he was vice president two times but he is known as a person who fought to keep slavery as his last dying wish you know i

know i mentioned that we weren't ready to see that reality reflected in our in our sort of fictional shows but I think watching it play out in reality TV and seeing how real people respond to these huge things that we've been grappling with, has just been fascinating. That's so interesting. You know, I don't, I don't watch a lot of reality TV myself, although that's such a compelling case you just made. I mean, how do you how do you feel about how reality TV did this year in tapping into these bigger conversations? Well, I mean, like, when you're talking about reality TV, first of all, its biggest job was probably distraction,

and it did that job really well. And, like, I think there are two main functions of pop culture, which is distraction and contextualizing. And, like, if reality TV didn't provide context for everything that we're dealing with, it certainly provided a distraction. And I would say that, like, one of the earliest example of this is like, look, if a show can dominate 10 percent of the conversation, cultural conversation and in a good year, that's pretty impressive. The fact that Tiger King managed to do that during a pandemic was pretty wild to me. We will end the private possession of these cats.

This is my way of living, and nobody's going to tell me any otherwise. I also think of, what was that show? Love in, oh God. Love is Blind. I always forget its name. What kind of work do you do? What are some of your biggest turn offs? So what are you looking for in a woman?

Ethnicity, race, physical appearance. None of that matters uh but i like this is again like a show that was filmed in 2018 uh but and then premiered on netflix in february and then about three weeks later we all start going to lockdown and suddenly their whole premise of they're in pods they are trying to date while not being able to look at a person fully um and it begins to be like, hey, that's kind of what my life looks like. And so you begin to cling to lifelines of pop culture that are kind of mining the same emotions that you are going through, hopefully. And that's what they did so well. I mean I know we were just talking about some of the more direct ways that COVID affected movies, TV shows, reality TV but I know that there is something that came out that you

thought captured the spirit of the year and talk to me about what that is. Taylor Allison Swift put out her eighth and ninth studio albums this year, which is, first of all, incredible. Second of all, they were great albums. And third of all, and probably most importantly, they were born out of the isolation that we were all in. You know, Taylor sort of tells a story about folklore, which came out in the summer, and Evermore, which came out just a couple weeks ago.

And she tells a story about how finding herself in isolation was one of the main drivers of sitting down writing these songs and and and and collaborating with people online will not be able to meet them and then just writing more and more and more and I still haven't been in the same room with Justin Vernon who has now collaborated on two albums heavily, and we've talked, but we've just never been in the same space together. It's pretty wild.

And I just think it's a really fascinating window into what happens when artists who are used to being in stadiums suddenly find themselves at home, and nobody else is around, and beginning to investigate and mine some of the emotions that come up. But also, like, in the case of Taylor Swift, letting her imagination run wild, make up a lot of stories. She came up with really beautiful narratives. And it's like these beautiful, intimate records that are a creative growth for her.

But also, like, their initial jumping off point was the fact that we were all isolated. Second, third, and hundredth chances Balancing on breaking branches Those eyes I'd end so to injury Right, right. It really is. I've been listening to Evermore on repeat, and it is such a beautiful album. Here's something I would really like to talk about today, in part because Frontburner is a news podcast by day, of course, but a low-key basketball podcast by night.

People are like, why do you keep doing basketball podcasts? I don't know. But so many headlines this year also seem to come through the NBA and the bubble playoffs that took place in Florida. There was this unprecedented wildcat strike by the Milwaukee Bucks, which was part of a wider protest against anti-black racism in the U.S. When we take the court and represent Milwaukee and Wisconsin, we are expected to play at a high level, give maximum effort, and hold each other accountable. We hold ourselves to that standard, and in this moment, we are demanding the same from lawmakers and law enforcement. We are calling for justice for Jacob Blake and demand the officers be held accountable. All the players were really outspoken. They were kneeling during the anthem. They had messages on their jerseys.

The WNBA was also really outspoken. And, Emile, what do you think that accomplished? I think it accomplished a lot. I think it was one of the most powerful standout moments of the year if we're talking about cultural impact. You know, for better or worse we do look to celebrities um and to sports stars to make sense of the things that are happening in the world um to sort of point be a moral compass uh for many of us because you know we do we do put them

in such great esteem and i think to see uh all of these players collectively choose to take that action um i think really changed the narrative on on the protest it's not that long ago that it was so controversial to even say black lives matter you know whether it was about defunding the police exactly exactly and you know and to be at a place now where it's complete not only is it normalized but it's celebrated and it's the starting point of the conversation you know it's it's a place that we all agree like okay yes black lives matter where do we go from here and i think that that that protest and that collective action really was a lightning rod and a turning point for that conversation. And definitely got to shout out the WNBA players because they really, I think, led that conversation since the sort of beginning of the summer.

I've asked some women from around the league to join me to amplify this message and to make it clear where we stand. We were never trying to convince you, and this was always a statement of fact, that Black Lives Matter. My life matters. My life matters. I mean, I, yeah, I mean, I'm getting chills just thinking about it because it really was just like such, such an incredible moment. Elamin, thoughts on this? When I think about that moment and I replay it back, I get anxious about its effects because I, first of all, I was really rooting for that strike to continue for longer because it really felt like the players figured out how much power they have and figured out how they could make people listen,

and people were in fact listening. I was curious what would have happened if they'd held out for a week, for two weeks, with networks being like, we have so much advertising money on the line and so we need to figure out some kind of way to support these players to advance the cause that they're trying to advance. And so I am hoping that the next time that they have to take a stance like this, that they take a stance for even longer. In the Dragon's Den,

a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that

of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Emil, you mentioned celebrities before and generally, talking generally, how do you think the pandemic has changed our understanding of celebrity this year if at all i mean i think we have talked about the imagine video uh spearheaded by you know uh wonder woman gal gadot yep these past few days uh got me feeling a bit philosophical uh probably every single episode possibly it comes up just just organically people are like well i mean let's not forget about the imagine video but uh it is true i do listen and

you have talked about it a lot well you know what honestly it completely shattered any pretenses we had that celebrities were in this moment with us it isn't hard to do you know all that talk about like we're in it together we're all experiencing this the same was just completely undone by seeing like people sweeping estates in the background as they try to sort of like rally some sort of like hopeful sentiment that the pandemic is the great equalizer right right it's like no i'm literally trapped in like 400 square feet and somehow it's very hot and cold in my apartment and my children won't stop screaming like we are not experiencing this the same um and i think every single attempt uh after that cursed video has really shown uh that the way that we have approached celebrity the deification of celebrities um i think that that that

relationship that sort of parasitic relationship is over. I think that the nature of celebrity going forward is really going to change. And, you know, whether it's sort of influencers like TikTok influencers who are, you know, quote unquote, more real, sort of fill that gap. We'll see. But definitely, I think that, you know, the kind of Hollywood fantasy has been shattered. Can I just remind us that that Imagine video was a total of five days into the pandemic? Like, it was five days. I know. Five days into all of this, all of them were like, we need to comfort the people. We need to imbue them with our sense of celebrity. we need to comfort the people.

We need to imbue them with our sense of celebrity. And it's like, Mark Ruffalo, what are you doing? You don't need to do this. Will Ferrell, this is beneath you. No need for greed and hunger. And like, you know that you could do better just in terms of like, at least like actual communication. But no, like he was like this moment. And I think Emil's right.

I know, people are like, just give us money. Like, what are you even talking about? Who asked for this asked for this like it changes just give us some of your money it changes how you view celebrities forever and outright pant um yeah which actually i have to say was very entertaining to watch as well um so on a whole though you know i know we've talked about some sort of standout examples you knowL in those early days, reality TV grappling with the moment, Taylor Swift making great music in isolation. I do have to say, and I know, Elamin, this is something that you just wrote a really excellent piece about, I was disappointed by art and culture this year. It felt like there was just so much going on, protests against racism, this gross mishandling of the pandemic, especially in the US, where now they're having like the equivalent of a 9-11 of deaths every day. Here's the question I want to ask you, where is the rage,

right? Like, where is the deep sorrow? Like, where are these great artists that have been able to capture these historical moments in the past where are these guys i mean pal if you find them please let me know because i i am also on the search for this i mean like the the point of that piece that i wrote was that like i remember so clearly when alan jackson took the stage in 2000 2001 um two months after 9-11. He performed this song at the Country Music Awards show. It was called Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning. Did you open your eyes, hope it never happened?

Close your eyes and not go to sleep. Did you notice the sunset, first time in ages? Speak to some stranger on the street. And it was like a song about, you know, describing the emotions of where were you, the exact moment that the planes hit the Twin Towers. And like the next day, these radio stations were racing to pull the audio, the bootleg audio from the TV recording so that they could play it on the radio. Nine months after 9-11, Bruce Springsteen gave us The Rising.

Nine months into the pandemic, we have nothing. We don't have an album that kind of sits deep and actually pulls all of these emotions together and lets us process the rage, lets us process the sadness, lets us process any of these things. Something that can contextualize everything that we went through. And by the way, I love Evermore, but I am not hoping to listen to Evermore next year. Like that is not, that is not the mood I want to be in. The minute I get the vaccine, I'm exclusively listening to the Spice Girls for a whole year. Like there's no way I'm listening to like dour music. So like the window is closing for something that is sad and poignant and actually reflects all of the hardship we just went through. Cause I fear like after everybody gets vaccinated,

we really are going to be just like in a different mindset. Emile? The thing is that we're still in it. We're still going through it. And in many ways, the worst is yet to come. You know, I understand what you're saying. I think the Bruce Springsteen reference with 9-11 is a great example of art that can respond.

But the thing is that uh you know he had time to process what happened we haven't had time to process it because we are still very actively in survival mode so i really think the best pandemic art is going to happen in a year that's super hopeful i love this, on that note, on that very hopeful note, thank you both so much for coming by and having this conversation. It's a pleasure. It was a lot of fun. Thanks for having us. Pleasure, pal.

A very, very happy holidays to you both. Yes, happy Christmas. Time to watch The Grinch, you know? And I haven't even seen Tiger King, so I'm going to watch Tiger King. That's a good Christmas watch. Tiger King is a Christmas dog. I can't believe I Tiger King, so I'm going to watch Tiger King. That's a good Christmas watch. I know, I can't believe I just admitted that on there. Anyways, guys, thank you so much. You bet.

Thank you, Jamie. All right. It was so nice to have our pals from Pop Chat On. You can check out their series of year-end episodes in their podcast feed. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.