“I can’t quite explain why I harbored high hopes for Bad Moms, a comedy about three stressed-out Chicago mothers on an empowerment bender,” Slate’s film critic Dana Stevens writes of the movie from the creators of The Hangover, the one that could have portrayed motherhood in a post-Bridesmaids, post–Broad City, completely 2016 kind of way. Unfortunately, “the dad minds behind Bad Moms don’t seem to understand, or be terribly curious about, the minds of mothers,” Stevens concludes. Elissa Strauss, looking at what the movie gets right and wrong about motherhood today, had a more charitable take: “Seeing a group of funny moms have dude-comedy-style fun in a competition-free atmosphere is a much-needed corrective to the frazzled, uptight moms that we usually see onscreen.”
The gals of Bad Moms were hardly the only moms on our minds this week. In fact, right now moms are having a bit of a moment. (Mom-ment?) Decidedly not-bad mom Hillary Clinton became the first woman (and first mom) to clinch a major party’s presidential nomination (but what will we call Bill?) at the Democratic National Convention, and Michelle Obama mothered a nation in her radical Democratic National Convention speech. Dads go hand-in-hand with moms, and this week we got to know vice presidential Democratic nominee Tim Kaine and quickly decided that he is a total dad, of the bad-joke-making, multiple-harmonica-carrying, balloon-kicking variety. Chelsea Clinton, she of underappreciated ’90s style and still-unwritten public persona, spoke at the DNC too, shouting out A Wrinkle in Time and sending its sales soaring in the process. The only thing that would have made the week better is if Hillary had quoted more Hamilton lines in her speech.
What else is going on besides moms and politics? In these dog days of summer, there’s a MadTV reboot out, and it’s a far cry from the show’s original incarnation. The Absolutely Fabulous movie pokes fun at, or maybe exposes the hypocrisy of, society. We’re pondering how after the Looking movie/finale, HBO may no longer be the go-to place for LGBTQ stories. Bojack Horseman tackled abortion, the new Star Trek movie didn’t tackle disability, Mr. Robot loves its Kubrick references, and Taye Diggs may be unfollowing you on Twitter right now.
A few more highs and lows from the week in culture:
- What to watch on Netflix this weekend before it expires
- A tribute to cartoonist Richard Thompson
- How to tell when Donald Trump is joking
- Jeffrey Toobin’s new book on the story of Patty Hearst
- Pokémon or cholesterol medication?: a quiz
- A gossip expert weighs in on this summer’s spate of Taylor Swift headlines
- A grand unified theory of disgusting office kitchens
- Sarah Silverman and the value of celebrities at political events
- The story of Crusader Rabbit, TV’s first cartoon
- Talking to the 91-year-old woman who designed a female president shirt in 1995
