🍿A CULTURE VULTURE NEWSY📀
Hi angels - Luce here (duh!!)
Let me introduce to you our first-ever Culture Vulture newsletter!!!
This is Liv's baby - (who you know extremely well from the Culture Vulture podcast) so I won't spend too much time introducing her (she'll do that below.)
You're all getting the first edish of this bonus newsy, but from here on out, this will only land in your inbox every Saturday if you're a ✨monthly or annual SYSCA supporter.✨ So, if you love what you're reading, come and sign up!
Welcome to the first EVER edition of the Culture Vulture Newsletter. I am so very happy you are here with me on this fine Saturday morning (or whatever time it is on your side of the earth), to learn about the world we live in through the wild and unpredictable lens of pop culture.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Culture Vulture, it is our (SYSCA’s) pop culture podcast! Yes, we have a podcast! Who knew! If you didn’t, you can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your fix of interesting conversations!! On the podcast, you’ll meet Liv (me - nice to meet you), and Luce (you probably already know her), and we go on to have a relatively informed chat about anything in pop culture - from celebrity defamation cases (I wonder who?) to image-generating AI's.
This newsletter is adding to the Culture Vulture world, an extension of the conversations Lucy and I have, but with more context, more thoughts and more recommendations. And please do let me know your thoughts on any of these topics, or if there is an amazing song/tv show/film you’ve been consuming that people NEED to know about! Sometimes when your entire job is on the internet it can feel weirdly like everything you do goes into a void of nothingness - so it’s nice to be reminded that real people are on the other end of the things we put out into the world.
The way this newsy is going to work is you'll hear a 'naughty or nice' story from Luce, and then you'll hear my take on a chunky piece of pop-culture each week. Let's get into it!
Doja Cat VS Noah Schnapp
Doja Cat picking a fight with Noah Schnapp was not on my 2022 bingo card, but I guess Stranger Things have happened (get it????) In case you missed it, Doja Cat has been quite vocally thirsting over Joseph Quinn, who plays Eddie on Stranger Things, for example when she tweeted this back in May:
And also things like how Eddies good looks are ‘criminal’ etc. Stan behaviour really, and so true.
But she decided to take things a little bit further last week when she DM’ed 17-year-old Noah Schnapp (who plays Will on Stranger Things) saying this:
Noah, who’s pretty good at this whole ‘internet’ thing, and is a kind of iconic shitposter, then put these ✨seemingly harmless✨ DMs in a TikTok video, thinking it was funny (and because Doja had already been public with her crush on Joseph.) But Doja did not think it was funny. She went on TikTok live to vent “about the whole fuckin’ Noah Schnapp thing” and said:
“First let’s be chill about it,” she began. “To be fair, this is like, a kid. Noah is like, I don’t know how old he is, but he’s not even over—like there’s no way he’s over like 21.”
“When you’re that young, you make mistakes. You do dumb shit. I’m like trying to be super fair. You say dumb shit, you fuck up relationships with people. You make mistakes. You’re supposed to do stuff like that so that you know not to do it in the future. I did my share of fuck-ups so that I don’t fuck-up again.”
“The fact that Noah did that. Like, went and posted a private conversation between me and him is so unbelievably socially unaware and whack. That’s like borderline snake shit, that’s like weasel shit.
“And I’m not saying that encapsulates his entire personality. Maybe he is, like, a whole snake. But I didn’t see him that way. I made an assumption that he was gonna be chill about it, and he went and shared information that I didn’t feel comfortable with him sharing.”
Like… yeah, maybe he shouldn’t have posted the DM’s - but the boy is 17 and probs thought that Doja’s Very Public Thirsting for Joseph was a green light? I mean - I love Doja Cat’s music, but this ✨odd✨ behaviour from her is kinda in line with some of her other behaviour lately - like when she got angry at her fans and said that she was ‘quitting music’ - or even how her Twitter name is ‘I’m better than you’ and her bio is ‘if you use stan speak you’re a fucking loser get your fucking life together how embarrassing…’
Anyway, the vibe of the internet is that Noah is a kid, and Doja often does whack shit on her TIkTok and she should kinda just… go easy on him.
PS, this is my fave headline from the whole saga: Doja Cat Not Sure if Noah Schnapp Sharing DMs About Joseph Quinn Is ‘Snake Sh-t,’ But it Is ‘Weasel Sh-t’
What Elvis missed
Now into the meat of this week’s newsletter - "Elvis" and all of the complexities of making a biopic about the ‘King of Rock n Roll’. Yes, we are talking about Baz Luhrmann’s glittery and glamorous tale of Elvis Presley, and unfortunately no, we don’t have enough time to dive into how Austin Butler learned to shake his leg like that, because I’m confused about how that's possible too.
Elvis’s music was on the soundtrack of my childhood. Dad grew up in the 60s/70s in a very religious household where music not approved by the church wasn't allowed, but his love for Elvis emerged when he started hiding his cassette player under his pillow and secretly listened to rock 'n' roll before he went to bed. When he finally had his own family he made sure we could listen to all the music, so Elvis was alive and free in our household.
Seeing the film with mum and dad was great. It was exciting and almost nerve-wracking - all the feelings you get when the subject matter has made a mark on your life. However, it wasn't until after the film that I actually made an effort to look into the complex history of this mark.
Initially, I thought the film was pretty good! I know some people very much do not think it was good, but I loved Baz Luhrmann’s aesthetically maximalist twist on the story. I adored watching Beale Street come to life with the gospel, jazz and blues music of the time. I also loved to hate Colonel Tom Parker, i.e. the manager from hell, who symbolised how bad the relationship between art and commerce can get when it’s put in the wrong hands.
However, the whole idea that Elvis became successful, rich and famous because he was a white man who sang Black music was left unexplored, and to be completely honest I didn’t know what to think. The film seemed to glaze over it, using suppressed Black history as a tool to paint Elvis in a good light - heightening his already untouchable legacy.
The more articles and reviews I read on the film, the more apparent it became that Baz Luhrmann and his team missed an opportunity to make us really think about the history of our musical icons in a new and educated light. Although the relationship here between appropriation and influence is extremely complex and intersectional, most critics agree that the film was somewhat indulgent - and that there just wasn’t enough analysis for a 2022 audience, who've heard the 'Elvis is a legend' story before.
What Baz is saying
From Luhrmann’s point of view, Elvis couldn't have appropriated Black music, because he grew up in a Black community. An Indiewire article says:
“The most important thing in this film is to show that a young kid, just like Eminem, grew up in a Black community, their personalities are formed by what they absorb,” Luhrmann said during the Cannes Film Festival press conference. “So the music that came out of Elvis was music that he absorbed and from his friendships with emerging Black musicians who weren’t famous like B.B. King.”
It's true that Elvis was raised in a time of racial segregation, and because his family was very poor and couldn’t afford to live on the white side of town, Elvis grew up in a Black community. And Lurhmann does show this - but he sorta stops there.
Elvis himself acknowledged throughout his career that he didn’t invent Rock 'n' Roll. He was quoted saying “Nobody can sing that kind of music like coloured people. Let’s face it: I can’t sing like Fats Domino can. I know that,”.
And when Vulture interviewed Yola - the musician/actress who played Sister Rosetta Tharpe about this very subject, here's what they wrote:
Stepping into [Elvis’s] world the way Parker saw it and Luhrmann interpreted it challenged her to consider less sinister reasons for Elvis’s mimicry.
“You’re gonna experience Black shit if you’re just around Black people,” she says. “And America is enamoured by Black stuff — surprise, surprise. So of course Elvis is gonna be like, I need more of this shit, and it’s his fucking raison d’être the whole time.”
She doesn’t blame him alone for burying rock’s roots. “The easy narrative is ‘He’s the appropriator,’ ” she says. “No, the system’s the fricking appropriator.”
What the critics are saying
Although rhythm and blues, jazz, and gospel artists such as Crudup, Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Little Richard did appear, critics are highlighting the fact that they are more of a plot device to get Elvis from A-B, and they lack development as characters in their own right. Also, the question of music ownership or rights was never brought up, leaving the audience confused and thinking things like: “what weight does growing up in a Black community hold when you become rich and successful because of Black musical influence, but the Black musicians themselves couldn't get airtime?” The movie doesn’t ask or answer questions like this.
Here's what film critic Robert Daniels has to say on the matter:
But all too often the film slips into a great white hope syndrome, whereby Presley is the sincere white hero unearthing the exotic and sensual Black artists of his era. B.B. King, Big Momma Thornton, and Little Richard (real-life supporters of Presley) exist solely as either bulletin board cheerleaders or alluring beings from a far-off land. While these Black artists are championed—an awareness by Luhrmann of their importance and the long and winding history of Black art moving through white spaces—they barely speak or retain any depth, even while a paternalistic Presley advances their cause.
Instead of deep-diving into the complexities of Elvis's legacy, the biopic gives us an 'out' through the common enemy of Tom Parker - who acts as a metaphor for capitalism and the commercialisation of the music industry. This is also an important conversation, and one worth telling - but is it more of a distraction from the more uncomfortable topic at hand? The system was - and still is - broken when it comes to the intersection of music and commerce, but this doesn't mean we should let it overshadow the other important conversations that Elivs's life could help us have.
This excerpt from Jack Hamilton's article in Slate sums up pretty well how Baz Luhrmann misunderstood the brief of making a movie for the audience of 2022:
For all the feedback-drenched electric guitars and trap-inspired 808s on the film’s soundtrack, the most anachronistic element of Elvis is its cloying need to assure us that its hero was a good person, as if trying to preemptively counter some imagined onslaught of TikToks about why Elvis Presley is problematic.
The movie goes to pains to depict Elvis as a man of liberal conscience who is deeply moved by the various political and social crises facing the United States in his lifetime but whose activist inclinations are repeatedly thwarted by the dastardly Parker.
What should we make of all of this?
In saying all of this, the way forward isn’t to 'cancel' Elvis - of course not! It is pretty clear that he had respect for the music and the people that he was brought up with and shouldn’t be used as a scapegoat for the systemic issues that were at play in his era. Instead, we should use Elvis to educate ourselves and push filmmakers and creators to tell the most truthful, well-rounded version of his story possible.
In 2022 we don't need another story about 'Elvis: the Rock n Roll legend' - what we need is to be taken seriously as an audience, and trusted that, if another part of his story was the focal point (like his complex relationship with Black music) we could accept that multiple things about a person's life can be true at once (he's a legend, but he also represents a very necessary conversation about appropriation vs appreciation.)
It also isn't lost on me that I am a white woman making these critiques and assumptions - so I will leave you with the perspective of film critic Robert Daniels who can articulate this sentiment far better than I ever could:
That flattening easily arises from telling this story from Colonel Parker’s perspective. He doesn’t care about Black people, therefore, they exist as cardboard cutouts. He cares little for Priscilla, therefore, she has little personhood. And Parker certainly isn’t going to tarnish the image or brand of Elvis because it corrodes himself. These undesirable outcomes, facile and pointless, make logical sense considering the framing of the narrative. But what good is making a sanitized Elvis biopic in 2022? And truly, who really needs a further fortification of Presley’s cultural importance when it’s been the dominant strain for over 60 years? It’s another noxious draft in history clumsily written by white hands.
Here's a little rundown of what we've been watching/ reading/ listening to over the past week!
Art/illustration/design
Illustrator: Karlotta Freier
I came across Karlotta Freier on my new favourite website "It's Nice That" and thought her illustrations were beyond beautiful.
Loved this quote from the article written by Lucy Bourton:
Digging deep into the articles she is assigned, Karlotta’s first task is to “search them for tension,” she explains. “The emotional world is narrative enough for me so I often just concentrate on that. Hope, sadness, longing, anger, solitude, fear, surprise, annoyance… it’s fun to inhabit drawings with figures who just feel stuff.”
Here's her website and her Instagram.
Music
If you want a deep dive into all of the SYSCA teams favourite music, don't forget we have playlists for you!!!
Firstly go and listen to the music of the legends talked about in the "Elvis" film. If there is anything we can take from the conversation above is that we can pay our respects to these icons by actually listening to their incredible music!!!
Song: La Lune - Billie Marten
I am in love with this song at the moment. Billy Marten has the most hauntingly crystal voice ever. Also love her song "Bad Apple". Also "Mice". ALSO her cover of "More Than This" - which is on the 'Everything I Know About Love' soundtrack, which was my recommendation a few weeks ago.
Album: Louisa Williamson - “What Dreams May Come”.
Louisa is a wāhine based in Pōneke (Wellington), and has made an incredible album that can be described as a hybrid of ambient, modern big band jazz and classical music. She composed it all for a 17-piece band! Holy shit!!!
The album is the first to be released on Blue Riot Records label - a completely wāhine-led team.
You can listen to Louisa's music on Spotify and can visit her website here!
Film/TV
Film: Where the Crawdads Sing
I haven't read this yet but have heard allllll the hype, so I'm sure a lot of you will be waiting for this with anticipation!!
I re-watched Normal People after bingeing Conversations with Friends, and I forgot how bloody phenomenal Daisy Edgar-Jones is - so I'm VERY excited to see her in a new role.
However, I saw in Vulture that there is a story behind this story, so I will be having a wee read-up on this too!
Documentary: Summer of Soul
If was want to know what Mahalia Jackson sounds like live then please, please, please watch this documentary on Disney Plus. It's a filmed version of "The Summer of Soul" which was a music festival in the summer of 1969. It was the same summer as Woodstock, and because it was a Black music festival it got fuck all coverage. You see Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and soooo many more icons who show you what music is really about.
TV Show: Love Life
I think I'm a bit late to the game on this one - or maybe it's just come to Netflix because they seem to be advertising it - but my flatmate recommended this to me and I really enjoyed it. Light and perfect for a hungover Sunday arvo.
Omg I think there is a season 2 - must watch now.
Why Sister Rosetta Tharpe Belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Rolling Stone)
Where the Crawdads Sing Author Still Wanted for Questioning in Zambia Murder (Vulture)
Why Are We Restricting the Abortion Pill to First-Trimester Pregnancies? (The Cut)
Halsey Auctioning Paintings Made Onstage to Benefit Abortion Funds (Paper Magazine)
The Day We Almost Lost 'LoFi Beats to Relax/Study To' (Paper Magazine)
Lemon Letters (Live Laugh, Lemon)