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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35476 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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The part that I don't quite understand is why Phoebe Waller-Bridge, an English feminist? comedian, is being asked to star in and produce action shows. She was asked to star "with Donald Glover on a Mr. and Mrs. Smith series, based on the 2005 film." That failed due to "creative differences" and now "Waller-Bridge would write (but not star in) a Tomb Raider series." Both of these were roles that Angelina Jolie had, and she is among the handful of women who can carry an action movie.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge's standout hit is Fleabag. I have seen (part of) the first episode. I find it hard to describe the genre, but it is British scatological humor. Think French and Saunders or a "Carry On" movie but with more toilet humor. It is about as far from action movies as it is possible to get. Perhaps the show is good, as "In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked Fleabag as the fifth-greatest TV show of all time" (beaten by the Wire, Breaking Bad, the Simpsons, and The Sopranos, beating the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mad Men, Seinfeld, and Cheers) but it is not anything to do with action. The other English shows on the list are Monty Python at 33, The Office at 53, Fawlty Towers at 68, and I’m Alan Partridge at 83.

Rolling Stone writes:

Sure, it’s rewarding when a TV show can provide dozens of hours of mirth across many seasons. Sometimes, though, the most satisfying experience comes from series that have a few things to say, say them perfectly, and then shake their heads and walk away before you can follow them into less-interesting story arcs. Never has that short-and-sweet approach been more impeccably executed than with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s tragicomic tour de force, where she played a self-destructive woman so lonely that her healthiest relationships were with her unseen television audience, and with the Hot Priest (Andrew Scott) with whom she fell madly in lust in the second season. And whether she was talking directly to us or not (in TV’s best-ever use of breaking the fourth wall), Waller-Bridge held the audience in the palm of her hand throughout. She made Fleabag as raunchy, as funny, and as sad — sometimes more than one of those at the same time — as she wanted it to be. And then she said goodbye.

Perhaps they intend to make a raunchy, funny, sad, Tomb Raider movie. Maybe it will be great.

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