Front Burner - The good, bad and ugly of pop culture 2022

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Pop culture in 2022 started with a bang (or slap) when Will Smith hit Chris Rock at the Oscars, and things only got weirder from there. From Brendan Fraser's comeback to Harry Styles possibly spitting on Chris Pine at the Venice Film Festival, there were a lot of "did that really just happen?" moments in 2022. Today, we're joined by the hosts of CBC's pop culture podcast Pop Chat to discuss Bennifer, the return of whale tails and everything in between.

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. There's one moment in March 2022 that really set the tone for the year in pop culture. Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it. All right? At the Oscars, Chris Rock had just made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, who's spoken out about

coping with hair loss from alopecia. Her husband, Will Smith, was laughing until he wasn't. Oh, wow! Wow! Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me.

He's my wife's name out your fucking mouth. Wow, dude. Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth. I'm going to, okay? It was this very weird, very awkward, even shocking moment. And for a bit, no awkward, even shocking moment. And for a bit, no one could even tell if it was fake or real. Looking back, it was among the first of several did-that-just-really-happen moments in 2022.

And I don't know about you, but definitely one I'd like to leave there. My guests today are hosts of CBC Pop Chat that just wrapped up its final excellent episode. Emile Niazi is also a freelance culture writer. And Elamin Abdelmahmoud will be the host of CBC's new pop culture show, Commotion, premiering January 30th, 2023. Today, we're going to look back on the things we watched, listened to, and scrolled through in 2022, which trends we should leave behind, and what's worth bringing forward into the new year.

Emil Alamein, hi. It's great to have you. Hi, good to be here. Hi, how's it going? It's going great, and I'm so happy that we get to have this chat before the holidays start. Let's start with the moments we wouldn't mind leaving behind in 2022. Alamein, if you had to choose just one, you can only choose one, pop culture moment you'd like to never speak of again, what would it be? Honestly, as much as I'd like to never speak of again yeah what would it be honestly like it's uh

as much as i'd like to never speak of it again it's also an image that just plays in a loop in my head and it's like this image of elon musk the day that he bought twitter um holding a sink because he's like to manifest the meme come to life of let that sink in and he's he's walking into twitter headquarters and it is kind of the image of my nightmares is also the harbinger of like terrible things to come. And so that would be that would be my moment. I would start there and then everything else gets worse after that. Well, I guess so much has happened since then that we might not be talking about the sink, but we're like definitely going to be talking about Elon Musk into 2023.

You know, you and I spoke recently about Kanye and how he's finally created controversy that he can't overcome. And I know he's announced that he's running for president in 2024. But do you think he's going to be getting the same level of attention next year? I will say, you know, just flowing from that let that sink in moment with Elon Musk, like shortly thereafter, you know, too many people were emboldened to tweet some of their most hateful stuff online.

And one of those was Kanye West. He's the person who tweeted in the middle of the night that he's going to go have a nap. And when he wakes up, he's going to go, quote, death con three on the Jews. It has sort of effectively killed Kanye's public career, right? Like, at least for the time being, every giant organization that had a relationship with him from Adidas to Balenciaga have kind of cut ties with him. The machinery of his wealth has kind of ground to a halt. Having said that, I

have been someone who's been engaging with Kanye's work for more than a decade now. And I know more than anything, Kanye West is very talented at creating and marshalling attention towards himself. And so I can't discount the possibility that Kanye will continue to do things that merit public attention and they will continue to get that public attention, whether they're deserved or not, whether they are increasingly more unhinged and hateful or not. Yeah. Emil, how about you? I know another one of the year's uglier stories that a lot of people probably would like to

never speak of, again, is the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. And walk me through what was going on in this really polarized television media event. Yeah, I mean, it was definitely one of the most toxic events of the year. In many ways, unprecedented look at the uglier side of celebrity life. We don't normally get to see in such a vivid detail the dissolution of a relationship, especially one that had so much ill will on on either side if you can't quite recall the details Johnny Depp sued Amber Heard for 50 million dollars over a 2018 essay that she wrote in the Washington Post he sued her over

defamation she countersued and in real time we watched both side go head to head and just really pick apart every single detail of their relationship, of how they treated each other, of how the media was complicit in how they sort of, you know, weaponized the end of their relationship against each other. And I think it was one of the first times that we really saw how social media can be targeted and used to really go after a celebrity. And in this case, Amber Heard was trending every single day. She was memed. You know, her tearful testimony was turned into GIFs and TikToks. She came into this courtroom prepared to give the performance of her life. And she gave it. Oh my gosh, she looks at the jury to check.

I mean, you couldn't... Where's the tears? This is the worst performance of Amber Heard in her her career and it was just a very very horrible way to watch someone talk about domestic violence and i think that we were all relieved when it came to an end i think it was a a very chilling end but nonetheless it was certainly yeah one of the more awful things that took place this year. Yeah. Worth noting, she announced earlier this week that she's made the decision to settle a defamation case brought against her by Johnny Depp in Virginia. She talks about how she feels like her whole life has been turned upside down by this.

What do you think, if any, longer-term consequences came out of this story? Well, I think the immediate fear was certainly that victims of domestic violence would feel like they were not able to come forward. Regardless of what you took away from that personally, I think there's no way around the fact that she was treated horribly by certain people on social media. And if you were at all on the fence about speaking out about something like this that happened to you, this would have had an entirely chilling effect. And I think we're also going to be looking at this case as kind of a benchmark for similar cases that are going to take place in 2023, including a similar case where Marilyn Manson is going after his ex-girlfriend as well for speaking out about domestic violence. And so there's no way that you don't see that and wonder how it's going to impact future similar cases. Right. That's a really good point. And that's a trial that I'm sure we'll be covering in 2023. This is a bit of a 180 tone-wise, guys, but there was one movie this year that I want to talk about

that was overshadowed by the personalities behind it, from Harry Styles allegedly spitting on Chris Pine at the Venice Film Festival to beef between director Olivia Wilde and actor Florence Pugh. There was so much drama about Don't Worry Darling. It was hard to kind of figure out what was going on there. And, Emile, what did you make of all of it? Oh, wow. I mean, this was the most dramatic rollout of a film I've ever seen in my entire life, like let alone 2022 ever. I think at first, it was kind of exciting that it was alleged that the star Harry Styles was dating the director

Olivia Wilde, and that was sort of titillating on its own. And you know, she's going through this sort of public divorce with Jason Sudeikis. But then add in, as we get closer to the release of the film, you've got Olivia Wilde allegedly feuding with the other star of the film, Florence Pugh. Florence Pugh, you know, not doing press, which is very strange for a movie, you know, at this scale. And then you have this video with Olivia Wilde sort of begging Shia LaBeouf, who had allegedly been fired, maybe had quit. I, too, am heartbroken, and I want to figure this out.

And, you know, I think this might be a bit of a wake-up call for Miss Flo, and I want to know if you're open to giving this a shot with me. That comes out, and suddenly you have basically the entire cast and crew of a film feuding. And we haven't even seen a full trailer. Yeah. This is like old Hollywood. Like, what is this movie even about?

What is this movie even about? Old Hollywood. Like, what is this movie even about? What is this movie even about? I mean, do you feel like it was distracting or genius marketing? Like, is this a marketing ploy that actors should bring into 2023? If there was a single person involved in designing this as a marketing ploy, they should be fired. And I say this not because it didn't do its job. employee, they should be fired. And I say this, not because it didn't do his job. Like, I think a lot more people are aware of Don't Worry Darling as a movie than they would have been otherwise.

But the thing about the movie is that it's actually like not that bad. Like, it's not this disaster of a movie that you should have expected to be. Harry Styles is like not particularly adept at keeping up with Florence Pugh, but also very few people are because she is one of the most talented actors of her generation. But maybe you think he's trolling, maybe you think he's genuine, but Richard Brody, the famed New Yorker film reviewer, put Don't Worry Darling on his best of 2022 list.

I think it was like number 12 out of 20 movies. The movie is not that bad. You know, my favorite thing about the movie is like, it feels like a movie. It feels like a real like, you know, go to the film movie. It otherwise would have been an interesting conversation to be had about Olivia Wilde's second movie. And people would have been like, okay, she's a director and she's building her name. But then it all kind of became about this distracting thing. So I would hope that this was not some kind of marketing stunt, because if it was, then it absolutely failed at its job. Although, you know what, if you're more aware of the movie, then who am I to say? Maybe

she doesn't want to be known as an auteur. Maybe she wants to be known as someone who creates drum on set. But I feel like that's probably not the play. No, it is probably not what you want as a director trying to make their name in the business. Here's one that I know has people split. Like if we're talking about the don't take into 2023 side of the ledger and the take into 2023 side of the ledger. Like, I have no idea where you guys are going to fall here. But Harry and Meghan, they just released their recent six part series on Netflix. There's a hierarchy of the family.

You know, there's leaking, but there's also planting of stories. There was a war against Meghan to suit other people's agendas. So are they courageous anti-racist with a beautiful modern love story or are they cynical media manipulators that are pretty out of touch? Are they both? Let it be resolved, Emil. I mean, I think they're both. I think they are two people clearly very much in love who were up against a very antiquated, archaic system that is out of is, they didn't approach it with the kind of excitement that they could have, which would have certainly gone a long way in modernizing this out of touch institution. At the same time, you know, for all of their we just want to be private, we just want to move on. This is like the fourth time we've heard some version of this story, you know,

and he's got a book in 2023. And a podcast. And they sat down with Oprah. And now we've heard some version of this story you know and he's got a book exactly in 2023 and a podcast and they sat down with oprah and now we've got this um quite boring netflix series and i think at a certain point they are just going to have to give us something more than the harry and megan story uh otherwise i do think that that people's patience is going to wear thin, even though I really do think they seem like lovely, genuine people. And I thought, for all the cynicism that I usually have towards the royal family, and I certainly have plenty, it is really is too bad that the royals got in their own way, because I think there was a lot of excitement and empathy for them to sort of be the new generation of royals, and they kind of blew it. But Harry and Meghan, you gotta move

on at this point. LV, you want to add anything to that? Obviously, this all happened the year the Queen died. Of course, listen, I would, you know, in the music industry, there's a phrase for when an artist is just like a little bit too omnipresent. And that phrase is just like overexposure, right? And it sort of feels like Harry and Meghan are right at that overexposure threshold, in the sense that they are doing so much. Like, I don't think we've gone maybe three or four months in the last 18 months or so without like a new sort of Harry and Meghan product. And there's something to be said about making themselves just a little bit less available. Because at this point, we don't know what kind of story they're trying to tell. And that's kind of confusing, right? Like the notion that we are watching this six part series unfold, and they're being positioned as these courageous people who stood up against this institution.

And we're still not quite sure about like, what they did, because they won't quite tell on the institution. If you're going to position yourself as someone who's kind of like, here's I'm this courageous figure who stood up against this institution, you better be able to tell me what that institution did. And they are reluctant, they can continue to pull those punches. I get it. I get why they would pull those punches because that institution is also family. However, it's like, don't bother me with it, right? Like until you're ready to talk about it publicly, I don't know why you're involving the rest of us. And so we're all kind of waiting to have some kind of payoff to the Harry and Meghan story. I feel like that payoff will come probably in his book.

There's not enough detail here for us to be invested as we should be. Yeah. So also what you're saying to me is we're definitely going to be talking about them in 2023. We're going to be talking about them in 2024, 2025. We're never going to stop talking about it. 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 Cups. One thing, talking about 2022, that I did not expect to relive was the early 2000s.

We saw so many reboots, comebacks, throwbacks, maybe the biggest of all, the return of Bennifer. Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck got married. What do you make of that Emil? I mean I love it as as any pop chat listener will know Elamin and I love Bennifer we love Ben Affleck you do yeah um and I think it it was this like amazing culmination of every return to the early aughts that we've experienced in pop culture over the last few years. That was just like the cherry on top. And I think it gave people so much excitement, not just for like them as a couple, but that

you could have a second chance at life. You know, I heard people talking about their own relatives giving their past loves another chance, people finding their high school sweethearts. It was like the optimism that we needed coming out of 2020 and 2021 that everything old is new again and that it's never too late to find love

or to go back to something that was wonderful, but just the timing was off. Just follow your college boyfriend on Instagram to see what happens. Yeah, just wait it out. Talking about those early odds, I mean, like, take me through some of the other comebacks, throwbacks that you're happiest to see this year. I mean, honestly, like, we are in the middle of the comeback from Brendan Fraser, which is like not one that I saw coming at all. You're an amazing person, Ellie. I couldn't ask for a more incredible daughter.

Are you actually trying to parent me right now? Who would want me to be a part of their life? Brendan Fraser is one of those people who I think a lot of people were rooting for him to come back, but he just didn't necessarily seem interested in coming back in the same way, or there wasn't the right vehicle for him to come back in the same way. And even though the film that he's in, The Whale, which is directed by Darren Aronofsky, has received a lot of mixed reviews, but nobody's complaining that Brendan Fraser is like leading the race for best actor. And I think like that's just a comeback

that makes me really, really happy to see. I'm really excited to see someone who is as beloved as Brendan Fraser kind of get his flowers right now. That kind of feels nice. And like, just remind me why it's such a comeback. Like what's he coming back from, right? Like the mummy? Like, the mummy? Like, is that why we love him?

Why do we love him so much? I mean, Brendan Fraser in the early 2000s had a string of movies that made him this kind of relatable heartthrob, you know? We just loved him in that period of time. And then he went away, and then he went away for a really long time. And part of his going away also included

a few years ago revealing that he accused a producer, I think it was, of sexual misconduct against him in a party. He boycotted the Golden Globes for a little while. I think he's still boycotting the Golden Globes. And there was kind of a thought of he's not going to try to return to the glory days, the moments of being on the cover of every magazine. And so to see him doing the festival circuit, getting seven, eight minute standing ovations after screenings of the whale kind of feels like this 20 year payoff the same way that Bennifer does. Like the idea of here's someone who brought us joy and then kind of disappeared without us giving them their flowers. And it feels like we can finally give them their flowers for all the joy that they gave us back then.

That was nice. I'm glad I asked you that follow. Yeah. Emil, can we do fashion really, really quick? So. Of course. I'm not sure I want to see low-rise jeans whale tail spandex flares make a strong comeback like am I wrong to think too there's like a heroin chic

aesthetic on the rebound as well yes I mean of all the horrible things to come back we do have I mean on the lighter side we have the low-rise jeans we have the visible thong we have the disappearing eyebrows thin eyebrows are back after you know finally finally being able to take a break and enjoy one's full eyebrows we've got to over why they're so awful i personally will not be indulging in that uh ever simply not possible for me um but then on the more sort of scary side, that nod to sort of glorified thinness, heroin chic, if you want to call it that, is allegedly back. And I think it's so dangerous to talk about it like a trend but people were very unhealthily thin in the 90s and it was really impossible to get away from and I think so many people were so

relieved that the body positivity movement encouraged a diversity of body types within pop culture to to kind of come forward and I think it's really regressive to see us go back to glamorizing something that is so unhealthy and really damaged a lot of people's self-image and physically their bodies. Yeah, 100%. I really hope that has a short-lived shelf life. Let's do the good stuff, hey?

Like, what do we want to see more of in 2023? We got a lot of new music this year. Emile, talk to me about Beyoncé's Renaissance album. Very good. Very good. I mean, it was, you know, unreservedly the album of the year. I think we had a lot of expectations about, you know, competing dance albums from Drake and Beyonce, but clearly one eclipsed the other. And one of my favorite things from the summer and from the fall

were clubs just playing the entire album front to back. I think other than just the music being fantastic and being so joyful, is that it felt like kind of a return to going out for many people. It felt like a reason to go back out. Like if you had hesitated, you know, as things slowly started to open up, it was like Renaissance gave you permission to get back on a dance floor and to be with your friends and to be sweaty and together. And I think that that's just what a lot of us needed. Like we needed Beyonce to give us permission, as we often do.

Yeah, more of that in 2023. More unabashed joy, for sure. Elamin, I know you're a Swiftie, a big Taylor Swift fan. What was it about her new Midnight's album that made it a hit for you? Why don't we just say everything? Listen, yes, I'm an unabashed Swifty. And I have been I feel like I've been waiting for this album for a while.

And by this, I mean, so her last studio album was Evermore, which she released in December 2020. And then she kind of spent 2021 releasing, re-releasing albums. So she re-recorded Fearless and she re-recorded Red. Those were huge moments for her. And there was kind of a thought that maybe she's going to spend some time re-recording all of her big albums because she's trying to sort of get out of this legal arrangement by owning her own masters. And the only way to do that is just to literally re-record her old music. And there was kind of a question as to whether she was going to continue to do that

and re-record all of her old albums and then come out with new music or whether she would just give fans some new music somewhere in the middle. And what came out was Midnight's. What came out of that was Midnight's. And Midnight's is both new music from Taylor, but also the first time in her career that she's looked back. Taylor has kind of naturally been a progressive artist. Like she's someone who thinks in eras and evolutions. Like she sort of says, okay, I'm done with this style. I'm now going to move on to this other style. But Midnight's is her kind of lingering for the first time.

And it's her maybe having conversations with her past selves and having conversations with her past albums. So there's a lot of intertextual references. Did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room? And every single one of your friends was making fun of you. There's a lot of, if you are a Swifty and you've been watching all nine seasons of Taylor Swift at this point,

then the 10th season, Midnights, is something that is like really rewarding for you because you understand all the references and you understand the ways that she kind of cast a certain story. And then you kind of come to Midnights with a new understanding of saying she's actually recasting this relatively familiar story to the fandom. And it was the kind of album that's like, if you're a deep fan of Taylor Swift then there's a lot for you here and if you're not a deep fan of Taylor Swift there may not necessarily be as much for you in this Taylor album as there would normally be in a Taylor album and I totally get that it's kind of alienating in that way uh I feel like that dovetails really nicely into a conversation I want to have with you guys about some of what we saw on TV this year. Speaking of clubs, they were also, they're playing Beyonce, but they were also

playing the instrumental theme song from the TV show White Lotus. And there was some really good TV this year talking about intertextual references. You know, I'm thinking of Euphoria, prequels for Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Succession. And, Emile, what shows were your favorites in 2022 that you would really like to see more of in 2023? Not just those shows necessarily, but that kind of style of tv well i mean definitely people are already fan casting um white lotus season three um you know one of our favorite things we talked about on on pop chat was how people um think it should be like the olympics and city should vie to like host the next uh season which I think is so great. I thought that Severance was one of the best shows of 2022.

I give consent to sever my memories between my work life and my personal life. So smart, so provocative. I thought it hit on so many themes that we've been discussing this year around work and identity. And I also loved industry on HBO. I think work was a big theme for the shows that I loved. And certainly, I think we'll continue to see that aspect of our lives explored more in television as sort of a darker approach to that. And of course, you know, I too watched Succession and Euphoria and I'm excited to see what's coming from The Weeknd from Toronto's

very own. He's got a new HBO show coming out in 2023. So there's a lot to look forward to. And I think we undoubtedly had a banner year in television and great for reality TV too, for my Bravo heads. Emile, I thought you were going to say that 90s show. I can't believe you didn't say it. Oh yeah, that 90s show. Well, I'm not really comfortable with a show about 10 years ago, right?

Because the 90s were 10 years ago. Absolutely right. You're right. That's how math works. It doesn't make sense to me. I know we're talking about TV, but I just, I want to spend a very small amount of time

just talking about the movies for a second, specifically Tom Cruise and Top Gun Maverick, which I don't know about you guys, but I enjoyed very much this year. And I love a good blockbuster. I'm constantly reminded by everyone on FrontBurner that I'm like literally the only person on the show that likes Marvel movies.

But it seems like Tom Cruise is like really risking his life to provide this kind of spectacle. And he's kind of heading into 2023 with this new Mission Impossible movie. So I don't know. That's kind of what I want to see more of at the movies. How about you, Alamin? First of all, you should go back to your team and tell them they're wrong about the Marvel movies,

that they are, in fact, a delightful time. And you don't, listen, Marvel movies don't ask anything of you. They just ask that you turn your brain off for half a moment and just like enjoy it that's fantastic i don't know i i'm on your side here you we will not win this argument that i they are they are very resolute that that i am contributing to the downfall of quality cinema well i have a i have a bone to pick with every single one of them but no i think you're absolutely right about tom cruise um top gun maverick ended up being the movie that I saw most in theaters, which is a sentence that I haven't said in like, I don't know, 10 years, because we just don't live in a moment and a time when we see a movie multiple times in movie theaters. But I went back to see Maverick like four times in movie theaters.

And it is not a short movie, I would like to add to that. It consumed 12 hours of my life as I sort of just kept returning to the theater. But it's because exactly what you said, the notion of Tom Cruise hellbent on giving you some kind of spectacle and the ways that he has organized his entire career to say, you know what? Marvel people are going to do movies on a green screen. I want to do the real thing. I want to actually risk my life. I want to do the stunt myself. There is something arresting about watching Tom Cruise on a screen because you know that he's doing the thing. Sure, he's harnessed or whatever safety mechanism need to be but he is the movie star in the middle of the screen doing the thing actually in person and i think just that knowledge

makes the watching experience just like that much more um electric so i i yeah more tom cruise forever so fun like i i can't believe you saw that movie four times. You're like one of the busiest people I know. I'm busy watching. I'm busy watching Top Gun Maverick. That's what I'm busy doing. It's amazing, like how entertaining that movie was, even though it made no sense from like a plot. Oh, yeah. Like you absolutely do not need like the enemy was just named as the enemy the whole time. Like in the movie, they're like, can we name a nation? we cannot we don't need to yeah it's not important didn't matter final question i know we covered a bunch of ground here today, but what are you most looking forward to in pop culture in 2023, Emil?

I am looking forward to more good television. I am looking forward to more optimism and joy. I think we've come out of a really dark period in pop culture as well. We were watching a lot of sort of like brooding, visually dark, moody TV. And I think we're sort of ready to return to not necessarily nostalgia the way that we did, you know, in 2020. But I think just heartwarming, surprising, tender, joyful stuff is where we want to go in 2023, and I'm all for it. Elamin? I love that answer.

I was going to take a slightly different tack and say I'm most looking forward to Yellow Jackets returning. That's a pretty dark television show. And so. Yeah, so good though. Oh, yeah. And it returns in March. And I'm truly just counting down the days.

But, you know, I think like one, I was going to say under talked about story, but not really. It's actually been talked about a fairly reasonable amount. Is like in the cloud of all the big shows like severance on the big shows like white lotus there we found a lot of room for a show like abbott elementary which is really lovely right um abbott elementary technically had his first episode at the very end of 2021 but most of the show started in 2022 and then its second season happened in 2022 um cheryl re cheryl lee ralph won um an emmy for best supporting actress for it and she had that amazing emmy speech where she just sang and it was like this magical moment and i think like abbott elementary is the kind of show that everybody

is rooting for and i just think we just need more shows where everyone's rooting for them everyone's rooting for the show to succeed and just say, this show is a show that makes me feel good. I'm invested in its creators and its success, and it's so entertaining to me. And so maybe more of that, just to stick to Emile's emotional palette that she just painted. Yeah, it's a good point.

Like speaking of White Lotus and even Succession, I mean, there aren't a lot of likable characters in those shows that you really, you want to see succeed. Guys, this was great. Thank you so much. And talking about stuff we want to keep talking about into 2023, a really good place for people to hear about those things is not just FrontBurner, but also El Amin's new show, Commotion, which they can catch January 30th. So listen to it, everyone. It's going to be great. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.