The Dirtbag Manifesto
As liberal comedy flounders, Chapo Trap House issues a welcome corrective—a brand of humor that is not just combative, but offers a systemic explanation for capitalism’s ills.
Fall 2024
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Doomsday Goes Mainstream
Doomsday prepping has long been associated with the right. Why is it catching on among liberals?
Atlanta Dreaming
The genius of Donald Glover’s Atlanta is to show the surreality of black life in America.
Harlem Is Everywhere
As the old neighborhood gentrifies, its transatlantic spirit lives on as the influence of black culture grows—from Lagos to London, from Havana to Atlanta.
All that Dissipates Must Descend
In her short stories, Ottessa Moshfegh chronicles downward mobility on the part of the privileged—and in so doing exposes their unfitness to rule, if not to exist.
Working the Deuce
The Deuce, at its best, offers a 360-degree view of New York’s sex economy—but as the show progresses, Times Square’s street characters become a sideshow.
The Coping Economy
While constantly pushing their workers to do more with less, companies have found new ways of easing the pressure. Enter the mindfulness craze.
Lana Del Rey’s America
Trump’s election has made Lana Del Rey rethink her patriotism, without losing sight of a resilient, youthful Americana—and hope along with it.
Give Peace a Chance
In their new documentary series The Vietnam War, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick offer a sharp indictment of an atrocious war. But when it comes to portraying the antiwar movement, they lapse into troubling stereotypes.
The Apocalyptic Baldwin
I Am Not Your Negro shows how James Baldwin became disillusioned about the possibility of any peaceful resolution to racism, but underplays the force of his internationalist and anti-capitalist perspective.
Artistic Differences
“He Will Not Divide Us” posited that we could all get along—but instead became a petri dish of American division.
It Gets Wetter
Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 refuses the typical binary of climate change fiction, offering hope for a future somewhere in between victory or ruin.
On the Dole with Ken Loach
Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake shows the cruelties of the UK’s benefits system, but fails to challenge the idea that benefits should only go to the “deserving” poor.
Don’t Feed the Trolls
Understanding the “alt-right” means spending less time looking to its leaders for ideological coherence and more on understanding how its base exercises power.
Slavery on Screen 
The films about slavery that came out during the Obama years have given us more powerful and nuanced representations of slavery than we have seen before.
