The Culture Gabfest, ‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’ Edition
Listen to Slate's show about the new Steven Soderbergh movie Magic Mike, the legacy of writer and director Nora Ephron, and Anderson Cooper coming out as gay.
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On this week’s Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss the new Steven Soderbergh movie Magic Mike and debate whether it’s a vehicle of pure pleasure delivery or an allegorical tale about economic dislocation during the recession. The Gabfesters then discuss reactions to the death of Nora Ephron and her legacy as a writer and director, her insights on American womanhood, and her knack for the life beautifully lived. They are then joined by Slate culture critic June Thomas to discuss Anderson Cooper’s coming out as gay and the calculations celebrities may make when deciding whether to emerge from the “glass closet.”
Here are some links to the things we discussed this week:
- Dana’s review and Spoiler Special of Magic Mike for Slate
- Urban Cowboy
- Flashdance
- Dan Kois for Slate on Steven Soderbergh's body of work
- The New York Times obituary of Ephron by Charles McGrath
- Lena Dunham’s remembrance of Ephron for the New Yorker
- Ariel Levy’s post for the New Yorker "Nora Ephron: Everyone's Arch and Insightful New Best Friend"
- Alyssa Rosenberg’s ThinkProgress post on how Ephron's writing craft made her movies better
- The foundational rom-com Annie Hall
- The Ephron movies When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail
- Heartburn, Ephron’s novel based on her divorce from Carl Bernstein
- Anderson Cooper coming out in Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Beast blog
- June Thomas for Slate on Anderson Cooper’s coming out and "What Gay TV Has In Common With Gay Bars"
- A recent Entertainment Weekly cover story on the understated ways in which many celebrities emerge from the closet nowadays
- A New York Times opinion piece on how celebrities come out
Endorsements:
Dana’s pick: The HBO documentary The Artist is Present, a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the mounting of the recent Marina Abramovic retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art
Julia’s pick: The original pioneer narrative, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie
June’s picks: The online international broadcast channel Link TV and one of its offerings, the Danish television drama Borgen; Syfy’s Canadian and somewhat supernatural series Lost Girl; and The Skinny, a comedy about a group of four young black gay men
Stephen’s picks: The Bryan Adams song “Heaven,” as covered by Brandi Carlile; the Portland, Ore.-based indie folk band Blind Pilot; and Dodie Smith’s classic I Capture the Castle
Outro: “Heaven” covered by Brandi Carlile
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